


A Curse and A Blessing

by Anogete



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dirty Talk, F/M, Flirting, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-19 01:53:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 46,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11303298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anogete/pseuds/Anogete
Summary: Bucky doesn't think touch therapy can cure his insomnia.  Steve disagrees and recruits Darcy to  "treat" Bucky with hugs each day.  It doesn't take long for things to escalate when you've got a flirty ex-assassin and a lab assistant with a crush.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone! I have a new fic for you!
> 
> For those not familiar with how I work--I don't post anything until the first draft is complete. This allows me to post one chapter each day as I go through and revise my draft. This fic will be nine chapters, a little less than 120 pages and about 43,000 words.
> 
> Originally, I set out to write a cute/sexy one-shot, but it developed into a longer piece with a helping of angst and a smidgen of plot. This fic deviates from canon, and I appreciate your willingness to just go with it. You'll only be hearing Darcy's side of the story here, so you'll have to use your imagination for Bucky's thoughts. He'll be pretty willing to tell you what he wants soon, though.
> 
> Thank you to my wonderful betas: [ChocolateGate (cocosmama)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cocosmama/pseuds/ChocolateGate) and [Bulmaveg_Otaku](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Bulmaveg_Otaku) for their encouragement and help catching my errors.
> 
> As always, I love feedback and would enjoy hearing from you, even if it's just a note to say you're reading. Any con-crit can be e-mailed to me at anogete527@yahoo.com. If you do the Tumblr, you can find me under my pen name there.

 

> _”Help me understand you, love. Help me go the way you want to go.” - Sabrina Claudio (Tell Me)_

When she found out the gym one floor above Jane’s lab was the same one Captain America and his broody sidekick used, Darcy decided she probably needed to work out every morning, bright and early at six o’clock. She’d never been a morning person before, but there was something to be said for bulging biceps in muscle shirts and asses in athletic shorts or sweatpants. It was definitely motivational.

The gym was nice, and conveniently located in the large six-story brick building that dominated a block in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn. She and Jane had been working out of it while on the payroll of some obscure government organization led by a bizarre dude with an eyepatch named Fury. Most of the Avengers had places on the three upper floors of the building. Captain America and his sexy friend probably lived above the gym.

She always kept to herself in the far corner, on the elliptical or the stationary bike, and just observed while they went through their routine. It wasn’t like they _needed_ to lift weights or run on that treadmill. They were ripped, and Darcy doubted any amount of cake or cookies was going to change that fact. She, on the other hand, needed to suffer through an hour of cardio every morning if she wanted to maintain her diet of pizza and Frappucinos. The eye candy definitely didn’t hurt matters, though.

That morning she had her earbuds in and had Britney’s Blackout album on with the volume cranked while she powered through one of the harder programs on the elliptical. Just as the fourth song started, the two finest specimens she’d ever seen walked through the door, Steve leading the way and Bucky following close behind. Bucky nodded in her direction and moved toward the treadmill on the opposite wall. Steve waved and flashed her a full-on Captain America smile.

Steve had been trying to get her to incorporate strength training into her morning routine, but Darcy wasn’t about to get near either of those two men. She would just embarrass herself like she’d never embarrassed herself before, so she stuck to the elliptical or the bike and just watched them flex their muscles in front of her. Exercise porn was totally a thing, right?

Bucky mostly ignored her, beyond nods hello and goodbye, which was fine with Darcy. He pushed all her buttons in the best ways, and if he actually talked to her then she might start drooling on her shirt or try to climb him like a tree. He probably wouldn’t appreciate either of those things since he seemed pretty standoffish and not amused with anything, ever.

She waved back at Steve before wiping a hand towel over her sweaty forehead. She’d already been at it for twenty minutes, and she probably had sweat stains on her tank top. Hopefully, the heavy-duty sports bra was absorbing all the boob sweat that was happening, though. She tilted her head down like she was looking at the display on the elliptical, but her gaze was lifted, staring up at the two super soldiers across the room.

Bucky had started the treadmill and was running at such a clip that she thought the machine might break or the belt might fly off. His arms pumped up and down, forward and back, in concert with his legs. He had great form. Actually, he had great _everything_ , including the five o’clock shadow on his jaws and the pecs she could catch a glimpse of as the flimsy muscle shirt with oversized armholes moved from side to side while he ran. His longish hair was pulled back into a low knot at the base of his skull.

Steve was trying to talk to him, but Bucky was having none of it. His gaze was forward and focused on the wall behind her and a couple yards to the left. Steve was standing by the treadmill with his hands on his hips. She watched Bucky snap back at his friend as Britney sang about breaking the ice. Those two never argued and curiosity was beginning to consume her mind. Gingerly, she reached up to her ear bud cord and turned the volume down to nothing.

“Buck, it’s not that big of a deal. I don’t think she would mind.”

“Drop it, punk. I’m not doing it,” Bucky said through clenched teeth, his voice low.

Steve stepped closer and said something under his breath to Bucky, but she couldn’t hear a single word with his back to her and the treadmill buzzing away at such a high speed next to him.

“No. I’m not asking her,” Bucky muttered. Her, who? She didn’t know who this her was or what they wanted her to do, but Darcy was already jealous. She had no right or reason to be, but there was that burning resentment taking hold in her stomach. Bad. This was so bad. She exercised in the same room as him while he ignored her, and she was jealous that there was some other woman he wanted something from. She’d give him anything he wanted. Unless it involved guns, bombs, or some sort of martial arts. Brownies, Netflix, and sex were more her speed.

“You need to do something. You can’t keep going like this. You haven’t slept in three days.”

“I slept last night,” Bucky barked back, his eyes darting over to look at her as he bit back whatever else he was going to say to Steve. Darcy’s stomach dropped into her feet, and she averted her eyes down to her phone perched on the elliptical machine’s console. Maybe he hadn’t seen her watching him. No, he’d definitely seen her looking. He was a super soldier, a spy, and an assassin. He’d made her so easily, and she was so embarrassed. She’d spent the past two months trying to act like she didn’t give two shits about James Buchanan Barnes while he flexed his thick thighs in front of her face when he did squats three times a week.

Steve gave a short huff of laughter and stepped away from the treadmill. “You slept for less than an hour. I heard you in the kitchen at one o’clock. Sharon said you were watching reruns of Matlock when she got up at four this morning. You took a nap, Buck. You need _sleep_.”

“I’ll swallow a bottle of fucking pills, then,” Bucky said, his jaw tight. She was watching him again, unable to keep her eyes off him and this little meltdown the two of them were having. Did they want some chick to sleep with him to wear him out? Because she’d take one for the team if that was the case. If by some miracle they were talking about her. Which they were _not_.

Steve stepped closer again. “You know it don’t work that way, Buck,” he said. “Just ask her. She won’t say no.”

“ _No_ ,” Bucky flicked his gaze back over to her and she dropped her eyes again. “Drop it, punk.” He looked extremely uncomfortable now. What if he knew she could hear them. Discreetly, Darcy slipped her hand up and hit the volume button on the cord. She didn’t blast it, but turned it up just enough to give them some privacy.

Steve said something else before he walked over to the free weights rack, but she couldn’t hear him. Bucky didn’t respond, his empty eyes staring at the wall a few feet to her left. The tension was so thick she was sure she could cut it. So, Bucky wasn’t sleeping, and Steve wanted Bucky to ask some lucky woman to help him out. Darcy wasn’t sure how this bitch was supposed to help Bucky, but she was green with envy at just the thought of it. She was also disgusted with herself for being the least bit jealous. The man had never said one word to her. She was pretty sure he thought she was silly. It was like being in lust with a celebrity and being mad when that celebrity got a girlfriend. In fact, this was exactly like that, and she was too intelligent and rational to be such an airheaded fourteen-year-old who cuts out the face of her crush’s girlfriend in magazine articles.

The display on the elliptical told her she had ten minutes left and then a five minute cool down. She stared at it as the machine counted down her workout. Seven more minutes until the cool down. Six more minutes. Five more minutes. She looked up to get a glimpse of tall, dark, and brooding and caught him watching her. His eyes dropped to the floor, and he tilted his head down. Just like she’d done to him a few minutes ago. Huh. He didn’t watch her. Not ever. Did he know that she’d eavesdropped on his argument with Steve? Was he upset with her? Annoyed that she came in here every morning to exercise with them? The chances were good. He wasn’t what you’d call a people person.

She glanced over at Steve, who was looking pointedly at Bucky and then rolling his eyes over to where she was finishing up her workout. What the fuck? Bucky was watching Steve like they were about ten to fifteen seconds from a knock-down, drag-out fist fight. Even though part of her wanted to stick around to see that display of masculinity, it would probably be best to quickly exit before punches were thrown.

The elliptical beeped to indicate the program was over, and the five minute cool down countdown started. She hopped off the machine and grabbed her water bottle out of the cup holder. Giving each of them a strained smile and goofy wave, she tossed her towel over her shoulder and headed toward the door.

“Darcy.” She could hear Steve’s voice over the music in her ears. She glanced over her shoulder and pulled out the the left bud.

“What’s up, Cap?”

Before Steve could open his mouth to answer her, Bucky hit the button that made the treadmill come to an abrupt halt. “Keep your mouth shut, punk,” Bucky warned, his eyes dark.

“Buck, it would help you. I can’t tell you how much it helped me.”

“No,” Bucky replied.

“Wait, what?” Darcy asked, her gaze bouncing back and forth between them like she was watching a tennis match.

“We were just wondering if you would be willing to help Bucky with a therapy session,” Steve said.

Bucky sighed and stepped off the treadmill, turning his back on both her and Steve.

“Me?” Darcy asked. She was the woman they were talking about? Yes, she was willing to do whatever that therapy session required. She couldn’t exactly open her big mouth and say that, though. “Uh, what kind of therapy?”

Steve was watching Bucky’s back. When the other man didn’t turn around, he said, “We’d only need about ten minutes of your time every day or so.”

“Doing what?” Darcy raised her brows.

“No,” Bucky said, turning around. He looked at her and shook his head. “You don’t want to do this.” It was the first thing he’d ever said to her. They’d seen each other every morning for almost two months and the first word out of his mouth directed at her was no. Fantastic. Just like a fucking fantasy.

“Sounds like you don’t want me to do this,” she replied, kicking one hip out and resting her free hand on it. His flat out rejection hurt her feelings, but also kind of pissed her off.

“He’s uncomfortable with it,” Steve explained.

“Then why are you making him do it?” she asked. “I thought you were a better bro than that. Also, what the fuck are we talking about? Do what?”

“Touch therapy.”

There went her stomach again, descending right down to her feet like a plummeting elevator. “Touch therapy?”

“Like, hugs. It helps with anxiety and insomnia.” Steve paused. “I didn’t believe it until I started seeing Sharon. She’s helped me a lot.”

“Steve,” Bucky warned.

Steve looked over at his friend. “You won’t let me or Sharon do it, then maybe you'll let her.” He nodded over in her direction.

“Why would he let me?” Darcy asked. The question was out of her mouth before she even really thought about it.

When Steve opened his mouth, Bucky cut him off with, “Not a fuckin’ word, punk.” He turned his gaze back over to Darcy and added, “Ignore him. He’s askin’ you for something he shouldn’t be.”

“I’ll hug you. Like, if that’s what you want. Because I’m a hugger. And because I’m going to go out on a limb and say that hugging you would def not be a hardship of any kind.”

“What?” Bucky asked.

In for a penny, in for a pound, she thought. “I mean, you’re hot and you look pretty cuddly. I’d probably be more into it than you, though.”

Steve was smiling with his arms crossed over his chest. “See, Buck. I told you she’d help. We live on the sixth floor if you want to stop by.”

“What?” Darcy said.

At the very same moment, Bucky said, “No.” The man really needed to learn another word. A couple yeses would definitely make him a little more approachable.

“Yeah, you’re right,” she told him. “It’s gonna have to be a hard no right now. I’ve got massive amounts of boob sweat going on under here, so I can’t do the hugging until I have a shower.”

“Doll, don’t feel like you have to do this,” Bucky told her, his hands on his narrow hips. His arms looked fucking amazing with that faint glisten of sweat and well-sculpted muscles on the right and dazzling metal plates on the left. His use of the term of endearment made her heartbeat kick up a notch. She wondered if he could hear it, wondered if he knew that she had the biggest crush ever on his fine ass.

“Don’t act like hugging you would cause me grief, because that's not true at all,” she told him.

“Might be.”

Darcy snorted before she chuckled at him. “Lies are coming out of your mouth, Thighs of Steel.”

This time it was Steve snorting and laughing. Bucky was just staring at her with that carefully blank expression on his face. It was his go-to look when he was around anyone but Steve. “Give us your phone number, Darcy,” Steve said. “I’ll have Sam give you instructions, and then Bucky can arrange a time to meet up with you.”

“This sounds suspiciously like a date,” she said.

“It is _not_ a date,” Bucky snapped before exiting the room.

Steve gave her an apologetic smile. “He’s not getting much sleep, so he’s grouchy,” he told her with a shrug.

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The instructions from Sam Wilson were simple. Three hugs a day and each hug had to last twenty seconds or more. The duration seemed a little excessive, but she sure as shit wasn't going to complain about it. Bucky did not call her, but that was no surprise to Darcy. In fact, Bucky skipped out on the gym completely the next morning. Steve just shrugged and said Bucky was feeling under the weather. More like under distress because he didn't want to get up close and personal with her. She'd almost asked Steve that morning why he'd bothered asking when it was obvious Bucky wanted nothing to do with her. She didn't, though.

She’d googled touch therapy after her conversation with Sam. He’d explained that it helped relieve anxiety and insomnia and generally boosted hormones that made you feel better. The internet had some more outlandish claims of extended cuddling being able to cure illnesses. Darcy had been working with scientists too long to put much weight to those claims, but Sam’s assertions seemed like they were reasonable.

The following morning Steve and Bucky beat her to the gym and were standing beside the weight bench when she walked in the door with her water bottle and phone in hand. “Morning, dudes,” she told them. If he wasn’t going to make a move and say he was ready for a little therapy of the hugging variety, then she’d sit back and wait. Darcy suspected with the way he was scowling at his best friend that there would be no hugging of any kind. Ever.

Steve smiled and nudged Bucky toward her. Bucky stiffened and stood his ground. Darcy was a little annoyed, but she wasn't sure if it was at Bucky for acting like she had leprosy or Steve for being so damn pushy with his friend and dragging her into a potentially embarrassing situation that she had no ability to say no to. Because what what woman would say no to feeling up on _that_?

Steve told Darcy good morning and walked right past her to leave the room. They always worked out together. Bucky was never alone in the gym. She was never alone with Bucky. Not that she was afraid of him or anything. Maybe afraid of getting caught staring at his chest, but not fearful for her life. Jane seemed to think Darcy was a little unhinged for not being cautious around the man. Sure, he was a former assassin with a long kill list and a bad attitude, but all that did was turn her on more. So, obviously, she was a little sick in the head. Just a little, though.

“Twenty seconds is fast. It’s less than half a minute,” she told him, standing across the room. She could see herself in the mirrors behind him. She could also see his perfectly shaped ass. What had she gotten herself into?

“Look, Darcy, you don’t have to do this.” He rested his hands on his hips. “I’m not a nice guy, and I know I make you uncomfortable.”

She jerked her head back in surprise. “I’m not afraid of you if that’s what you think.”

“Don’t lie. It seems pretty obvious you are.”

“Uh, well, you come in here and brood in the corner and don’t say shit to me for two months. I just assumed you didn’t like me, so I kept my head down and tried not to piss you off. I’m not scared of you, though.” She walked over to stand in front of him. “Also, you _are_ kinda a nice guy. I don’t think Mr. Nice Guy himself, Captain America, would be best buds with you if you weren’t.”

He looked down at her with that impassive expression and those cold eyes, and then he looked up at the ceiling, heaving out a huge sigh. She waited while the seconds ticked by. Finally, he looked back down at her and said, “I’ve slept maybe three hours in the past four days.”

“Dude, that sounds shitty to the max. Do you really think hugs cure insomnia, though?”

The corner of his mouth lifted just the slightest bit. “No, but Steve and Sam swear it will help.”

“So, why aren’t they hugging you?”

That corner of his mouth lifted just a bit more. “Because I threatened to punch them.”

“I hope you’re not going to punch me,” she said.

“I promise I won’t punch you. But I really don’t want to do this.”

“Do what?”

“Touch therapy. Hugging. It’s bullshit. Won’t help. One day I’ll get tired enough and just pass out.”

“Don’t you and Steve go on missions? What if you pass out at an inconvenient time?”

He turned away from her and ran a hand through his hair. “You sound like them now.”

“Them? Like Steve and Sam? Well, maybe those busy-bodies have a point about one thing.” Darcy walked over to the elliptical and dropped her water bottle into the cup and her phone onto the console. “Just think of it like a superstition. It probably won’t work, but what does it hurt to do it anyway? Just to be safe. You know?”

“It does hurt. It’s inconveniencing you because my head is so messed up I can’t get sleep,” he said, watching her walk back over. He didn’t look impassive and distant any longer; he actually looked extremely nervous.

“It’s not an inconvenience. Plus, I get to hug a hunky super soldier. Have you seen your fan sites? Pretty sure there are tens of thousands of women out there who would pay money to give you a hug.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said.

“But true.” She looked up at him, taking in the rough stubble on his face and the cagey look in his blue eyes. “We gonna do this?”

“It’s not going to work,” he said.

“And if it doesn’t, then we’ll go to Kinkos and have a banner printed up that says ‘Captain America and the Falcon are full of shit,’ and we can hang it at the main entrance to this building. Saying ‘I told you so’ is literally one of my favorite things to do, like, _ever_.”

Bucky smiled at her. It was barely there–so small someone who didn’t know him might not have noticed it–but it was definitely a smile. “I don’t like touching people.”

“Well, you’re in luck because I’m an expert hugger. You came to the right girl.”

He was rubbing the back of his neck with his right hand, massaging the muscles there. “For the record, this is a stupid idea.”

“Do it to get Steve off your balls.”

He huffed out a sharp laugh. “You got a mouth on you, doll.”

“I know. It’s gotten me in trouble a few times. Actually, it’s also gotten me _out_ of trouble a few times, too. So, are we doing this?”

He dropped his right arm and let both of them hang limply at his sides. “Fuck it. Yeah. Let’s just get it over with.”

Darcy thought he was even more irresistible and attractive when he was flustered and nervous. Or maybe she had spent one too many months without a decent date. No, definitely the former. He was too hot for his own good. “Promise you’re not going to punch me?”

“I promise.”

She stepped closer, first a full step and then a half step as she entered into his personal space. Suddenly, she was hit with exactly how good he smelled. Fresh and clean, like she needed to rub herself all over him. Whatever deodorant he was picking up at the drugstore was doing it for her, and she was ready to crawl up underneath his arms. “You smell so good,” she blurted out, unable to keep her mouth shut.

Darcy watched his adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard. “So do you.”

She laughed softly before she gingerly slipped her arms around his waist. The first thing she noticed was the way his body immediately tensed when she touched him. Quick on the heels of that was how warm he was and how rock hard his muscles were. Bucky’s stiff arms were held awkwardly out to his sides like he didn’t remember how to hug. Maybe he didn’t. Darcy pressed her right ear and the side of her face against his chest. She could hear his heart beating steadily.

“Did you start the timer?” she asked.

Bucky chuckled nervously, but kept his arms away from her. “It’s been twenty seconds already,” he said.

“Don’t bullshit me, Barnes,” Darcy snapped. “It’s been like two seconds. What deodorant do you wear? Because it’s giving me all the good feelings.”

His right arm wrapped around her shoulders, but he kept the metal prosthetic away from her. “Uh, gray container with a blue label.”

“Definitely not Axe or Old Spice. Hmm, Mitchem? Gillette?”

“Gillette,” he said.

“So, you’re gonna give me your dirty laundry to roll in, right?” she teased. Darcy mentally patted herself on the back when he laughed softly and tightened his right arm around her shoulders.

“I think it’s been twenty seconds,” he told her, his breath ghosting over the top of her head.

“Oh, all right, party pooper,” she said, reluctantly letting him go and pulling away. His right arm slipped off her to hang at his side again when she stepped back. “Was that as bad as you thought?”

Bucky looked down at her, that inscrutable expression on his face again. “Not so bad,” he agreed.

“When do I get my other two hugs? Sam said three a day keeps the insomnia away.”

“How about we start with one and work up to three?” he asked.

The door to the gym clicked open and Steve came back into the room. “He let you hug him?” he asked when Darcy turned around to look at him.

“None of your business, Cap,” she said with a smile and a flip of her ponytail when she turned toward the elliptical.

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She didn't get a second or third hug that day, but Bucky showed up a few minutes early and alone the next morning. She had just started her exercise program on the stationary bike when he walked through the door and made all the butterflies flutter around in her stomach.

“Hi,” he said, looking a little shy.

“Did you sleep?”

“No.”

She paused the program and slipped off the bike. He looked like the prey, but Darcy was pretty sure he was really the predator. “Well, you didn't follow the prescription,” she said.

Bucky stepped closer to her. “That's why I'm here early.”

“Three hugs in a row? I don't know if you can handle that, buddy.”

He chuckled, and she saw the glimmer of humor in his blue eyes. It was a good look on him, made him seem like the hottest boyfriend material there ever was.

“Are you gonna give me another one of those half-assed, one-armed hugs?”

“I don't want this to scare you.” He lifted his metal prosthetic.

Darcy shrugged. “Not scared. It's kinda hot.”

He smiled and shook his head at her. She stepped into his personal space again and wrapped her arms around his waist. Just like the day before, he tensed. Also, just like the day before, she wanted to get inside his shirt with him and breathe in his scent. “Thank you for humoring me,” he murmured into her hair as his arms–both of them–went around her shoulders in a loose embrace.

“This is a pathetic hug, Barnes. Put your back into it,” she teased.

His arms tightened, and the heavy, unyielding plates of the metal one felt strange as they shifted. Not bad, just different and unusual. “This better?” he asked.

“Much,” she told him, sliding her hands up his back. The muscles there bunched up like her exploration triggered his flight or fight response.

“I'm starting to think you're the one afraid of me,” she said, pressing the tip of her nose into the front of his sleeveless shirt.

“I am,” he admitted.

Darcy laughed softly. His chest was throwing off delicious warmth that she could feel seeping through the fabric of the shirt and touching her lips. “Bad-ass Bucky Barnes, afraid of a mere mortal chick with a dirty mouth who gives great hugs.” She paused and pulled back to break the connection. “I do give great hugs, don't I?”

“You do,” he agreed, letting his arms hang limply at his sides. “That one was longer than twenty seconds, so I think we should count it as two.”

“You still owe me one more.”

Bucky bent his knees and wrapped his arms around her waist. The position pressed her body all the way up the length of his, and her arms had nowhere to go but around his neck. She crossed her forearms at the base of his skull and looked up into his face, which was disconcertingly close. His breath smelled like spearmint, and his eyes were even more gorgeous when they were only a few short inches away.

His hug was perfect with just the right amount of pressure to make her go weak in the knees for him. “Damn, you're a fast learner. A plus for improvement,” she whispered.

Bucky smiled at her, the corners of his eyes crinkled up in genuine good humor. “Good study partner,” he whispered back.

Just when Darcy wondered if they'd been wrapped up in his embrace for more than the requisite twenty seconds, she heard the door open and Steve enter the room. Bucky immediately let go of her like she’d burned him. “Sorry,” he mumbled under his breath.

“Three hugs, Buck,” Steve said with a devious smile.

“The first one was extra long,” Darcy told the Captain. “And mind your own business, Rogers.”

Bucky snorted and turned toward the weight bench. Darcy scooted back up onto the seat of the bike and tried to hide her smile and her bigger-by-the-minute crush on James Barnes.


	2. Chapter 2

> _The way that you stare, it’s so addictive. The way that you breathe, I can’t resist it. So when you talk, I can’t help but listen. I feel every sound, you could say I’m obsessive. - JONES (Indulge)_

The next morning he was in the gym when she walked through the door at ten after six. He was leaning against the mirrored wall in a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt so thin she was sure she could see the contours of his abs through it. “Still rocking that insomnia?” she asked, putting her bottle and phone down on the elliptical.

“Yeah,” he agreed, pushing off the wall.

“Sorry,” Darcy told him, scrunching her nose up. “My hugs are defective.”

“More like Steve doesn't know what he's talking about.”

She smiled and walked up to him. “I like that explanation better. Are we still doing this thing, though? Because _I_ slept great, and superstition says it's because I got some arm action from you.”

Bucky bent down, opened his arms, and wrapped them around her waist again. The movement was smooth, but took her off guard and onto her tip-toes. She giggled and grabbed his shoulders before sliding her arms over them and pulling him in closer. She could feel him all the way up her body from knee to chest. “Is this okay?” Bucky asked.

“Fuck, yes.”

He chuckled and the humor in his eyes and the flash of white teeth in his smile made those butterflies in her stomach take flight. Who knew the stone-faced and intimidating Bucky Barnes who claimed to be a bad guy was the sweetest man she’d ever had the pleasure of hugging.

“Why did Steve pick me to do this?” she asked him, not letting him pull away yet.

He adjusted his arms around her and pressed his forehead into one of her arms over his shoulders. “I might have given him the idea.”

“Oh, yeah?” she asked.

“Yeah. But we aren't going to talk about it.”

She pulled away from him and ended the hug. “We aren't?”

“We aren't,” he agreed, arms hanging at his sides.

Darcy wrapped herself around his waist, and he lifted his arms to slip them around her shoulders. The right one was warm while the left was more the temperature of the room. “Can we talk about how sexy your deodorant smells?”

“Also a topic we aren't going to discuss,” Bucky said. She didn't take offense because she could hear the humor in his voice.

“Damn, grandpa. Are you going to make me talk about the weather?” She rubbed the tip of her nose over the front of his shirt. “It's supposed to rain tomorrow,” Darcy murmured into his chest.

“Mmm hmm,” he agreed. “Thunderstorms in the evening.”

Darcy laughed softly. “You should do the weather report. I never wanted thunderstorms so bad.”

“They aren't fun with a metal arm.”

Darcy pulled back and ended the hug. For a moment she thought he was being serious, but the sly little smirk on his stubbly face told her otherwise. “Looks and a sense of humor?” she asked. “Better watch yourself or I'll try to swindle my way into more than just a hug.”

The smirk lifted into a full smile, and he shook his head at her before wrapping her up in another hug. With ease, he lifted her off her feet, pressing her body tight against his. He carried her across the room and sat her down beside the elliptical. Her head was swimming with dirty thoughts of how easily he could carry her off to bed. “Don't let me keep you from your workout,” he said.

He let go of her and backed up to put a few feet of space between them. Darcy said, “Hugging can burn calories and build muscle.”

“So can lifting weights, but I don’t see you doing that,” he said.

“You need to stop talking to Steve Rogers. He’s on my ass about the strength training.”

“He’s right,” Bucky said.

Steve opened the door at that moment. “Who’s right? Me?”

“No,” Darcy and Bucky said at the same moment.

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The next morning she didn’t get any hugs from Bucky because word on the street was there had been an incident on Staten Island. Darcy wasn’t cool enough to know exactly what happened, but the news wasn’t covering it at all. That usually meant it wasn’t that big of a deal and money was paid to certain executives at media outlets to keep the situation hush-hush.

She was bent over the piece of shit printer in Jane’s lab, attempting to figure out why it was converting all of the numerical data to stupid symbols when the door opened.

“Look, I’m pretty sure if you asked Thor nicely, then he’d intimidate whatever government peon is responsible for this POS, and then we could buy a new printer,” she said, looking up to who she thought was Jane in the doorway. It wasn’t Jane. It was Bucky Barnes, looking like sex on legs in his tactical pants and Under Armour shirt. His hair was loose around his face and that fucking shirt was so form-fitting it should have been illegal. “Oops, thought you were Jane, “ she admitted.

He shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Steve told me where to find you,” he said.

Darcy straightened herself and walked around the desk. “Welcome to my office.” She swept her arm out to indicate the room. “Actually, this is the lab. My office is technically this desk.”

“I, uh, slept last night,” he said softly.

She stared back at him, not understanding what he was saying. “You what?”

“Slept. For five hours,” Bucky clarified.

Darcy’s eyes widened. “Oh. Shit. For real? Was it an I’m-so-sleepy-I-passed-out situation?”

“Not really.”

“Just five hours, though? Yuck.”

Bucky closed the door and stepped further into the room. “We were called out at three o’clock this morning. Might have slept more if that hadn’t happened.”

She smiled and scooted her ass back onto the edge of the desk and let her feet dangle. “Are you telling me that Steve and Sam might not be full of shit?”

“I’m not ready to admit that yet, but I’m willing to say that I'm superstitious now.”

Darcy’s smile grew bigger. “Is this like a booty call, but for hugs?”

“What is a booty call?”

“Oh, boy. I need to catch you up on these fantastic turns of phrase. It’s stopping by or calling someone to see them for the purpose of doing the sex.”

Bucky’s eyes widened. “Ah, I see.” After a moment’s consideration, he said, “Well, yeah, I guess you’re right. This is a booty call for hugs.”

She leaned back and propped herself up with her palms pressed into the surface of the desk behind her. “Willing participant here,” she told him.

Bucky slowly approached her and paused for a moment before he worked one of his impressive thighs between her knees. When he bent down and slipped his arms around her, Darcy laughed and lifted her hands to his shoulders.

“You’re damn good at this hugging thing,” she whispered against his neck. He shivered and shifted closer until he was standing between her legs and pulling her body up into his. He was strong, and she was just along for the ride.

Her body was pressed up against his front. The tight, short-sleeved shirt, the heat rolling off him, and the way he smelled of that damn deodorant and just a little sweat was sending her libido into overdrive. The way he whispered, “If you're responsible for those five hours of sleep last night, then I owe you a big favor,” made her weak in the knees. Luckily, he was supporting her weight even if her feet were flat on the floor now.

“How big of a favor?” she teased, looping her arms around his neck and pulling him closer so she could whisper in his ear.

“I get more sleep tonight, then I'll do whatever you want, doll.”

Was Bucky fucking Barnes flirting with her? Because this was feeling really flirty and rife with innuendo. “Oh, boy. I better think hard and make it a good wish.”

“Only if I get more sleep,” he reminded her.

“Oh, you will. I have a Louisville Slugger in my closet. I can use it to knock you out.”

Bucky's body shook as he chuckled at her joke before pulling away. It felt like he was reluctant to let go. Darcy knew she was reluctant to let her arms slide off his shoulders. “I'm interrupting your work. Sorry,” he said.

“You, sir, can interrupt me with hugs anytime you want. Believe that.”

He flashed her a smile and backed out of the room. It took everything Darcy had not to follow him down the hall and, hopefully, back to his place. “Hey,” she called out. He pushed the door back open and looked at her with his brows raised. “You just got one hug.”

“It was a good one,” he said.

“I give good cuddles, too.”

He gave her a little smile. “I bet.”

“Don’t take my word for it, though. I have these plans to watch all the television tonight. If you want to come by…”

“I don’t know. You just threatened me with the baseball bat in your closet.”

She snorted. “Don’t be a wimp, super soldier. Like you can’t take a hit to the head once in awhile.”

Bucky’s gaze dropped to the floor and then lifted back up to meet hers. “Not what I’m worried about, doll, “ he murmured. She barely heard him from across the room.

This time it was Darcy’s brows that went up toward her hairline. “I’ll be a very professional therapy cuddler. No hanky-panky. Promise.”

“In that case…”

She grinned. “Are you allowed to go places without your chaperone? Because I don’t live in the building.”

That admission actually did surprise him and wiped the smug grin off his handsome face. “Where do you live?”

She ripped a scrap of paper off one of Jane’s precious reports and jotted down her address in Greenpoint. It was only a twenty-five minute walk from the building. “Here,” she told him. “But not a date.”

“Therapy session,”he agreed. “With a possible assault by baseball bat.”

She laughed. “Why didn’t you ever talk to me before? You’re _fun_.”

“I haven’t been fun in a long time. I’m relearning it.”

“A plus, Barnes. A fucking plus.”

He smiled so big he flashed her those perfectly white teeth. “Thanks, doll.”

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They hadn’t agreed on a time, and Darcy was halfway of the mind that he wouldn’t even show. However, just after seven-thirty a knock at the door of her studio apartment made her nearly throw the box of Triscuits she was eating across the room. “No fucking way,” she muttered under her breath before standing up to walk over to the door. He wasn’t really coming over to cuddle with her on her couch, was he? They’d shared a handful of hugs and maybe a total of fifteen minutes of flirty conversation. She wasn’t even sure that made them friends.

Bucky was, indeed, the person who had knocked on her door, and he was all alone. He was also wearing a pair of faded jeans and a long-sleeved, off-white henley. She swallowed hard and looked up to meet his eyes. He looked a little nervous and very uncomfortable before he seemed to flip an internal switch and smiled. “Hi,” he said.

“I saved you a seat, “ she replied, moving out of the way so he could enter her tiny one room apartment. The kitchenette and bathroom were to the left of the door. Her bed was to the right; she’d even made it in case he came over. Not that she cared whether he thought she was a slob or not. Okay, maybe she cared a little. A folding screen separated the bed from the couch, two armchairs, and coffee table that were arranged across from the television hanging on the wall. There were two tall windows that looked out on an alley. Not exactly a mansion and definitely not what he was used to if he lived in the Avenger’s secret office building.

“You live in my old neighborhood,” he said, stepping inside and running his eyes over her place.

Darcy walked back over to the couch and flopped down just right of center. “Oh yeah? Has it changed much?”

“Hardly recognized it, but it’s been a long time, I guess.” Bucky turned around and looked down at her. “Why don’t you live in the building with everyone else?”

She shrugged. “Some of us aren’t superheroes and don’t get the perks and amenities like free apartments.”

“You work with Jane Foster? And you know Thor?”

Darcy nodded. Jane lived with Thor and had offered–almost insisted–that Darcy move in with them, but Darcy would rather have some space and not be subjected to disgustingly sweet displays of affection on a daily basis when Thor was around.

“Then you should live in the building, don’t you think? You’re alone out here in Greenpoint. You could be a target if someone finds out you know them.”

She waved away his concern. “I like having my own space. And no one cares about little old me.”

He sat down beside her, but left a foot of cushion between their thighs. “That’s not true.”

“I’m not high enough on the totem pole for anyone to consider or investigate,” Darcy assured him.

He was looking at the television screen, watching the old Paul Rudd and Jason Segel comedy that had started a few minutes before he’d arrived. “Some bad people wouldn’t think twice about finding someone like you that people like Thor care about and using you as a pawn.”

“Like I said, I’m not that important. Jane? Thor would stop the world to save her. Me? Eh, he’d try his best, but… I’m not Jane.”

Bucky opened his mouth and then shut it, his jaw visibly clenching down on whatever he’d been about to say. A few seconds later he had obviously made the decision to drop the topic when he said, “What are you watching?”

“A totally awesome comedy called I Love You, Man. That guy,” she said, pointing at Paul Rudd, “is getting married, but he doesn’t have any friends. He befriends that guy because he needs a best man.” She pointed at Jason Segel. “They’re both weird dorks, and it’s great.” Darcy glanced over at him. “Did you have any trouble finding my place?”

“No,” he said, his eyes darting around the room. It was obvious he didn’t know what to do with himself. His hands were flat on his thighs, his fingers curling over his kneecaps.

She pushed herself up and dropped down right next to him. “In lieu of carrying out my threat of knocking you unconscious, I'm going to suggest we try the preferred method of cuddling to encourage the good sleeps.”

His lips twitched into a faint grin, but he didn't look her way. Instead, his eyes stayed firmly on the television, and his body stayed coiled and tense.

“Lift your arm,” Darcy demanded.

He did as she asked, putting his right arm up in the air so she could curl up against him and rest her ear and cheek on his chest. Bucky's arm came down and settled around her shoulders. His touch was comfortable and felt right. “I forget how this goes,” he admitted.

“Bullshit you do, you smooth motherfucker.”

He laughed and tightened his arm around her. “You and that mouth are going to get in trouble.”

“With who? You?”

“Nah, doll. I don't mind at all.”

“Steve?”

“Mmm, Steve’s as bad as you when he’s not putting on the all-American boy routine for the Cap fans.”

“Oh, really?” Darcy asked, her voice lilting up to indicate how interested she was to hear more. The palm of her hand rested on the other side of his chest, her fingertips rubbing against the material of his shirt.

“You ain’t getting out of the service without knowing how to say fuck in at least ten different ways.”

She laughed softly and pressed her nose into his shirt. He really did smell great. Better than any guy who'd ever given her the time of day. She concentrated on his heavy arm draped over her shoulders, his rough fingertips against the skin of her arm.

They fell into comfortable silence as they turned their attention to the movie. She could feel the steady rise and fall of his chest under her hand and face. His body threw off warmth that made her want to lie on him and fall asleep. It was the equivalent of relaxing in the pleasant heat of the sun. She opened her mouth to tease him or joke about how good he felt or smelled, but couldn't really string words into sentences. The fingertips of his right hand were tracing the smallest circles lightly on her bicep just above her elbow, and it felt so good she was getting chills.

A little more than halfway through the movie, Darcy shifted against him and said, “Do you think this helps you sleep.”

“Sam gave me articles about studies that have been done on touch therapy to cure insomnia and anxiety. It's supposed to help, but…”

“But?”

“Seems kinda silly.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “But whatever works, right?” She tapped his chest with her fingertips. “Why’d you never talk to me in the mornings at the gym?”

He didn’t answer right away, instead choosing to stare at the television. The pads of his fingers were still rubbing little circles on her arm. Finally, he said, “Didn’t think you wanted to talk to me since you know who I am.”

“Did I make you feel that way?”

He shifted his arm around her and settled a little further into the couch. “Nah. Just… what I thought.”

“Hmm,” she said, “you thought wrong.”

“There’s a difference between wantin’ to talk to me and wantin’ to look at me,” he said.

She looked up at his face and the scruffy hairs covering his jaw and chin. He had that blank, vacant look again. The man could swing from playful flirtation to closed off it less than a second. It was frustrating. “You caught me looking some of those mornings?”

He gave a little shrug with his left shoulder. “All those mornings. Trained assassin, doll. I keep an eye on my surroundings.”

“Well, I’m doing more than just looking right now,” she replied.

Bucky nodded and finally looked down at her upturned face. “Yeah, you are. Why?”

“Why not?”

“Ain’t an answer.” he told her.

She didn’t really want to give him the answer, which involved her having a massive crush on him. “Seemed like the thing to do. You’re a good guy, and it wasn’t a hardship. I mean, I _was_ looking, right? And you give great hugs and you smell fantastic and it’s not like I have a line of guys waiting around to watch movies with me while they give me goosebumps by touching my arm.”

His fingers stopped moving. “Why were you looking?”

Darcy’s abrupt laugh was almost a snort. “Uh, have you seen yourself in a mirror lately?”

“No. I… my relationship with mirrors is a little fucked up right now.”

“Is that a way of saying that your relationship with yourself is a little fucked up, too?”

Bucky was the one that gave a harsh laugh this time. “Yeah, probably. Shit’s all jumbled still.”

“Your memories or…”

“Everything. I remember stuff, but in pieces.” He paused and looked back at the television, his fingertips rubbing their slow circles again. “It’s like having the pages of a book, but they aren’t in order. Been trying to figure that out for a while.”

“Have you gone to the library? Looked up historical records to create a timeline for what you can?”

His chest rose and fell in a deep sigh. “Yeah. Ain’t much good with the new setup. Hell, never was much good with the old one when I was a kid. Libraries weren’t my thing.”

“I could help you.” She paused. “If you want my help. I mean, I don’t want to assume you’re comfortable…”

He cut her off with, “You’re one of the only people who makes me feel comfortable.” His admission made her heartbeat quicken.

“Then I’ll help you. Next time you want to go, we’ll go together.”

“Why are you doing this?” he asked. “Really?”

She lifted her hand up and then brought it back down to pat his chest a couple times. “Because I like you, and you’re a great cuddler.”

Bucky’s phone started ringing from the pocket of his jeans. He didn’t make a move to pull it out, instead saying, “It’s Steve. He’s probably worried about me.”

“Did you tell him where you were going?”

“No.”

“Am I your little secret?” she teased.

Bucky tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling. “He’s a real pain in the ass when he’s right.”

“What’s he right about?”

“A lot,” Bucky said. “Too much.” He leaned into her and shoved his prosthetic hand into his pocket to find his cell. It was one of the fancy Stark phones that Darcy had been dying to get her hands on.

He checked the display, and she could see the message about the missed call from Steve. “Text him back,” she said. “You don’t have to tell him you’re here.”

“I hate texting,” Bucky said. He handed the phone to her. “Tell him I’m with you, and I’ll be back in a few minutes.

Darcy looked at the display for a moment, wondering what she should say. Finally, she pulled up Steve’s name and typed out the message on a small keyboard that was amazingly accurate.

**Bucky: Watching a movie with Darcy. Be back when it’s over.**

She stared at the message and then looked up to find Bucky starting at it, too. His arm was still hugging her into the side of his body, and his fingers were still distracting her with those little circles. The phone dinged.

**Steve: No you ain’t. Where are you really?**

“He doesn’t believe us,” Darcy said. She smiled up at Bucky and said, “Wanna prove it to him?”

“How?”

She pulled up the front-facing camera and extended her arm out, angling the camera down at her face. “Come here,” she told him.

Bucky gave her a short, nervous laugh. “I’m already here.”

“Put your head in the frame,” she said, adjusting the camera again. Bucky hunched his bigger body down and gingerly pressed his temple against the side of her head.

Seeing him so close to her on the screen was surreal. This was James Buchanan Barnes, war hero turned HYDRA assassin. She’d read about his actions with the Howling Commandos when she’d been in school. She’d seen the shaky footage filmed by witnesses when he’d caused a full-out battle on the freeway in D.C. She’d also heard stories from Natasha about how skilled and dangerous he was. It hadn’t deterred her from getting up early to watch him lift weights, do pushups and squats, and run–all with effortlessly perfect form–every single morning, except on Sundays. Sundays were for being lazy. The lure of a hot guy only went so far.

And now that hot guy, who was written about in history books, was sitting right next to her, looking a little anxious and a little stern on the screen of his fancy-ass cell phone. Her life just got more bizarre by the week. “Perfect,” she said, looking into his eyes on the phone screen.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his eyes shifting away from their likenesses. When he looked back, she could see his eyes were on her, not himself, on the screen.

“Proving it,” she said. “Say cheese.”

“What?” Bucky asked.

She tried to hold her hand steady as she turned her head toward him and pressed her lips to his cheek, right on the line where his stubble stopped and the soft skin of his face began. At the same time, Darcy snapped the picture. Even though she knew she shouldn’t, she let her lips linger on his skin. He didn’t seem to mind because he didn’t pull away. In fact, he’d frozen and hadn’t moved a muscle.

When she finally turned her face forward to look at the phone, she found a picture of them together. His eyes were a bit wider than normal and his lips were parted in shock. She’d surprised him, but it wasn’t until that moment that she felt maybe it had been an underhanded thing to do to a man who was still struggling with PTSD and intimacy issues. However, when she looked over at him and opened her mouth to apologize, he had a small smile on his face.

Instead of the apology, she said, “Wanna send it to him?”

“Sure,” he said, adjusting his arm around her to pull her closer.

Darcy texted the picture to Steve. It only took a few seconds for him to respond.

**Steve: Call me**

She laughed. “Uh oh, you’re in trouble. Your chaperone wants you to check in.”

Bucky shook his head. “I ain’t calling him. Tell him I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“I’ll call him.”

His fingers started those distracting circles on her arm against. “Knock yourself out, doll.” Bucky’s voice when it was soft and close like this made her want to melt all over him, especially when he called her silly, dated nicknames that made her heart skip a beat.

Darcy pulled up Bucky’s contact list, which was short, and dialed Steve. He answered on the first ring, asking, “What’s going on?”

“We’re watching a movie on my couch. What do you think is going on?”

Steve was silent for a moment and then cleared his throat. “Hi, Darcy.”

“Hi, cockblocker.”

“What?” It was like stereo because the word came out of Steve’s mouth and Bucky’s at the exact same moment.

Darcy laughed at them, thinking that the shocked look on Bucky’s face would be complimented well with what was surely the scandalized look on Steve’s. “We’re just watching a movie and getting in the daily hugs so your compadre can get some sleep. You don’t need to worry about him.”

“What is a… you-know-blocker?” Steve asked.

“Look it up, Cap. You need to brush up on your twenty-first century slang anyway.” She glanced over at Bucky who looked like he at least had some idea of what that phrase meant, judging by the amused smirk playing on his lips. Lips she really wanted to kiss. “He says he’ll be back in a few. We’ve still got about twenty minutes of the movie left.”

“Can I talk to him?”

Darcy raised her brows and offered the phone, but Bucky shook his head.

“No,” she told Steve. “His mouth is busy.”

“What?” Steve asked again.

Bucky took the phone from her hand and said, “I’ll be home soon, punk,” before hanging up. He looked down at her. “You enjoy riling him up like that?”

“Maybe,” she said.

“You know he’s going to end up asking Clint what a cock-blocker is, right?”

“I’m counting on it,” she said.

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As it turns out, Steve didn’t ask Clint. He asked FRIDAY, who gave him the urban dictionary definition. Steve was in the gym the next morning when she show up, and he was alone.

“Were you two going to have sex?” he asked, without preamble or even a good morning.

“What?” Darcy asked, almost dropping her bottle of water on the floor.

“I looked up, uh, what you said.”

That was when the pieces fell into place and Darcy realized what he was referring to. “Can you not even say it?” she asked.

Steve pushed his chin up. “I can. It’s just not appropriate in conversation with a lady.”

“Steve, calling me a lady is pushing it, don’t you think?” she said, setting her bottle into the holder on the elliptical and throwing her towel over the handle. She dug her phone out of her pocket and sat it on the console just like every morning. “We didn’t do anything, so you can unbunch your panties,” she finally said.

He cleared his throat. “I… I mean, I’m not saying you _can’t_. I just… I wanted to make sure he’s okay.”

“Steven Rogers, are you giving me permission to bang your best friend? And are you giving that permission behind his back?”

Steve had the decency to blush. “No! I mean… yes. I mean… this is inappropriate.”

“You’re telling me,” Darcy said, fiddling with the controls of the machine to find the right program.

“I’m just saying I don’t disapprove if you two…”

When he trailed off, unsure of how to continue, Darcy said, “Yeah, just stop while you’re ahead. We were watching a movie. Nothing more. Get your mind out of the gutter, Cap.”

Bucky picked that moment to walk into the gym. His eyes went to her first, and Darcy didn’t miss the faint smile that turned the corners of his swoon-worthy mouth up.

“Morning, sunshine,” she told him. “How’d you sleep?”

“Fine,” he replied in a gruff voice, glancing over at Steve before moving over to the treadmill directly across the room from her.

Not exactly the response she’d been looking for, but maybe he was trying to put up a front for Steve. She stepped up onto the pedals of the elliptical and started the program, which was one of the easier ones.

Steve watched the exchange with a wide smile on his face. Bucky scowled at his friend–the kind of scowl you’d give to someone who was gloating unbearably–and started running on the treadmill. Within three minutes he was running so fast the treadmill seemed like it could hardly keep up with him. Darcy unabashedly watched him. He knew she looked, so why bother hiding it.

After ten minutes of running, he glanced up and caught her eye, pieces of his wet hair hanging in his face. He gave her the slightest smile and then went back to concentrating on his morning workout.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all you lovely readers who left a comment to make me a happy author. I hope you all enjoy the coming chapters as much or more than these first two. :-)


	3. Chapter 3

> _”You take me to places I’ve never known, and you push me to places I’ll never go.” - Khalid (Shot Down)_

Later that day she got a phone call from an unfamiliar number while she was trying to force-feed Jane a grilled cheese sandwich she’d picked up from a food cart a block over.

“Darcy, scientist wrangler extraordinaire and all-around awesome chick, how can I help you?”

“That’s some title, doll,” the voice on the other end said. It was a deliciously familiar voice she’d had the pleasure of hearing oh-so-close to her ear last night.

“Well, hello there, handsome,” she said, the smile on her face growing at the unexpected call. “What I can do for you? You want it, you got it.”

Bucky laughed softly, and all she could think about was exactly how good he’d be at phone sex if she could just get him to talk a little more. He had the voice, and he knew how to flirt. She was almost positive Bucky Barnes could lay down some delightly filthy conversation that would get her motor running in no time. He interrupted her ruminations with, “I’m still not convinced this touch therapy thing is working, but…”

“But you don’t want to risk getting zero sleep tonight?”

“Yeah, and…”

Darcy cut him off and said, “And you totally miss feeling up on me, right?”

He laughed again. “Well, I was going to say that I was hoping you and me could go to the library this evening, but I’ll go along with what you said, too.”

This time she was the one laughing. “What time are we going to the library?”

“Whenever you’re free.”

“For you, I’ll make myself free. What time?”

“Pick you up at four? I’ll even buy you dinner afterward,” he offered.

“Will there be hugs involved? I’ll only say yes if there will be hugs.”

“Minimum of three,” he said. “Might throw in an extra one if you can tell me how to login to those computers since they did away with the card catalogs.”

“I got your back. One online card catalog tutorial coming right up. Also, you can meet me in the lab. I’ll leave from here.”

“See you, doll,” he murmured into the phone. The way he said it gave her goosebumps. Yeah, he could definitely get her sloppy wet with a little dirty talk. In fairness, he might even be able to do it by reading the phone book, too.

When she hung up, Jane was watching her with narrowed eyes. “Who was that?”

“No one,” Darcy said.

“Sounded a little too flirty to be no one. Was that James Barnes? Are you two going on dates? I thought it was just three hugs a day and that’s that?”

“Well…” Darcy said, dragging out the word. “Yes and no, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t a date.”

Jane raised her brows. “Pretty sure, huh?”

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It wasn’t until they were sitting in the subway car that Darcy realized how uncomfortable Bucky was. His body was tight with tension and his eyes were sweeping the car and out the windows on both sides. She could see the slightest glimmer of sweat at his hairline and upper lip.

Darcy reached down and placed a hand lightly on his knee. “You okay?”

Her question knocked him out of the constant vigilance, and he sighed. “Yeah. Am I that obvious?”

She smiled at him and squeezed his knee. “No. I didn’t notice until just now. Is it always like this for you? When you go out, I mean.”

“Mostly,” he said. After a moment of sizing up all the other occupants of the crowded rush-hour car, he added, “It’s a little harder right now.”

“Why?”

He shook his head. “Instinct. I want to protect you, so I feel anxious. More anxious than if I were alone.” Bucky paused and then said, “I know the chances of something happening are slim, but… but this is a hard habit to break.”

She leaned over and tilted her head up to whisper in his ear. “I’ve got a Taser in my bag if anyone tries to fuck with me. You don’t have to be my personal bodyguard.”

He laughed out loud before saying, “That’s okay. I don’t mind being your bodyguard.”

Darcy raised her brows. “Oh, yeah? I didn’t know I rated one of the big guns to protect my body. Who made that call?”

“I did,” he replied, looking down at her. “Although, it’s good to know you have a weapon in your bag. You’re just full of surprises.”

“Like an onion, baby. I’ve got layers upon layers. Also, I’m pretty sure I could make a grown man cry like one.”

“I bet you could, doll,” Bucky replied, the corner of his mouth lifting up.

They rode the rest of the way in silence. On their short walk to the library, he positioned her slightly in front of him and to the side. The fingertips of his right hand brushed against the small of her back if she had to stop at a crosswalk or to let someone walk in front of her. Darcy had never dated the kind of guy who made protective gestures like that. Maybe it was when he was born or his training or even some quirk of his personality that made him treat her like that, like she was special to him, but it made her feel heady and a little flustered with warmth curling in her stomach.

“Where do you want to start?” she asked when they entered the library, breathing in the comforting smell of old books that mixed with his clean, fresh scent. It felt like he was surrounding her, his hand hovering over the small of her back and his body turned into hers. Not that she was complaining. He could guard her body any day of the week.

Bucky shoved a hand in his pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper that he'd folded many times. Before handing it over, he said, “I… I did some bad things. I just assumed you knew, but… If you didn't then… I mean, if you don't want to see this or if you don't want to see my…”

“Yeah, yeah. You were the fist of HYDRA and all that baloney. I know you did the assassin thing for the bad dudes. Gimme.” She held her hand out and wiggled her fingers.

Reluctantly, Bucky handed the sheet of paper over and watched with what she assumed was trepidation as she unfolded it. Written with a blue pen and in flawless, spiky, tiny letters was a list of assassinations. Most had names attached, but a few just had physical descriptions. Underneath each were the details he remembered—the time of day, the location, the motivation behind the hit if he’d been given that information, and how he'd done the deed. As she scanned it, the innocuous list suddenly morphed into something more chilling. This was a list of people, some of whom were probably innocent of wrongdoing, that he'd killed during his time with HYDRA.

She looked up at him and saw that dead look in his eyes. He'd shut down when she'd unfolded the paper. Maybe it was something he had to do to get through. She wrapped her fingers around the metal prosthetic. He'd covered it with a light olive green jacket and a black glove to avoid anyone noticing. He also wore a black baseball cap pulled low to hide his eyes from anyone but her when she stood right next to him. “Come on,” she said, “let's try the internet first.”

“Doll,” he said, not budging. She didn't have the strength to force him to move. “I didn't think about having to show you the list when I called you. You can back out. No hard feelings.”

“You calling me a quitter?” she asked. “I _know_ your ass is not calling me a quitter, Barnes. You know I've still got that baseball bat, don't you?”

His mouth twitched until he gave her a little smile. The coldness in his eyes melted a little when he said, “Yes, ma’am. And I'm not calling you a quitter. Just giving you an out.”

“I don't want an out. Come on.” She tugged at his arm again, and this time he followed behind her.

They found an open computer at the back of the library facing the wall. The one next to it was out of order, so Bucky took a seat there, pulling it closer to where Darcy was sitting. His knees were spread and bracketing her a bit while his left arm was draped across the back of her chair. She felt surrounded again, but it wasn’t unpleasant. In fact, it was more than a little enjoyable to have a nice-smelling, handsome, competent man taking up some of her space after she’d spent most of her time with dudes who’d be lucky to make it to class on time after a night of drinking. Bucky was definitely not her usual type, but damn if he wasn’t hitting all her buttons just right.

She flattened his list on the table by the mouse, and then she dug in her bag and pulled out a notepad and a pen. “Timeline,” she told him. “You fell off the train in, what, nineteen forty…”

“Five,” he told her. “February nineteen forty-five.”

“Hmm, okay,” she said, turning the tablet lengthwise and drawing a line on the far left side and labeled it with the year and the word ‘oops’ right below that.

Bucky’s soft chuckle gave her chills. “Oops, doll?”

“Yeah, the beginning of a disaster is always oops. And then you gotta fix the oops.”

“Is that what I’m doing?”

She shrugged. “What you’ve already done,” she corrected. She drew a line on the far right side of the page and wrote ‘2018’ and ‘Met Darcy’ below it before looking over to gauge his reaction.

“Nice ending I’ve got there,” he told her, his gaze not wavering from hers.

That little comment and the look in his eyes kicked her heartbeat up a few notches. “Now we just gotta fill in the blanks. When did you escape HYDRA? Twenty fourteen?”

“Yes,” he agreed.

She drew a line and wrote the year and ‘freedom’ below it. Just to the right of that line she wrote ‘2016’ and ‘reunited,’ to indicated the year Steve found him. One more tick mark was placed to the right of that with ‘2017’ and ‘thawed’. “I swear I’m not a stalker,” she told him. “I just wanted to know who the cute guy with the hair and the muscles was in my gym.”

“I’m flattered,” he said softly, leaning into her space a little more as he adjusted that arm across the back of her chair.

“So, now we have to fill in the blanks.”

“Nineteen sixty-three. Kennedy,” he said.

Darcy jerked her head over to look at him. “For real?”

Bucky shrugged and looked like he wanted to crawl under the table. “Yeah. Sorry.”

She waved away his apology and put a tick just to the left of middle and wrote the year and the former president’s name. “Don’t apologize for something you were brainwashed into doing.”

“Nineteen ninety-one. Stark,” he said.

She added it on there and waited for him to add more names. He was able to give her the years and names of other political figures or business magnates who he’d been ordered to assassinate. Darcy added their names without comment, filling in the timeline of his life after the train. “Okay,” she finally said, “now we need to figure these out, right?” She tapped his paper with the tip of her index finger.

“Yes.” He was quiet while she pulled up a browser window, but finally said, “Are you afraid of me now?” His voice was soft and breathy.

Darcy turned in her chair to face him, letting her hand slide up his prosthetic left arm before it came to rest on his shoulder. “Nope,” she said. “Are you afraid of me?” she teased, trying to pull him out of the dark place he’d descended to.

He gave her a sad smile. “I’m actually terrified of you. My sleep schedule is dependant on you, and you could give me the boot at any time.”

“I’d never,” she said, squeezing the metal shoulder and wondering if he could feel the pressure. “I’m enjoying these hugs.”

Bucky watched her for a long moment before dropping his eyes to the table and the crumpled sheet of paper with his kills on it.

“Okay,” she said, turning back to the monitor. “Let’s see what we can find.”

///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\

With the help of the internet and a few newspapers in the microfiche archives, they were able to fill in the years between nineteen forty-five and twenty-fourteen. Just before the library closed, Darcy suggested they save the ones he didn’t know the names of for another time. He told her that she didn’t need to help him, but she insisted that they’d come back another day to find those. Darcy selfishly hoped it would take several trips to the library to track down the names and dates on those people because spending time with him like this was nice.

Bucky took her messenger bag from her as they walked down the steps of the library and slung it over his shoulder. “Where do you want to eat?” he asked, looking like he was nervous and anxious again. His eyes were darting here and there, watching a couple teenagers on skateboards halfway down the block.

“You don’t have to feed me,” she said. “It’s been a long afternoon, and you look like you could use some time alone.”

“I promised you dinner, but if you don’t want…”

“Hey,” she said, “I want. I just don’t want you to feel pressured.”

“I need to do this,” he said. “I _want_ to do this.”

“Okay,” she replied, looking up at him as he focused those gorgeous eyes on her. “How do you feel about pizza? We could grab a slice and eat in the park over there. I think there’s a good place a couple blocks from here.”

“Yeah, okay,” he said. “Okay.” He pulled in a deep breath that expanded his chest and made him look even bigger. She watched him exhale through parted lips and suppressed the urge to kiss him. Part of her thought he might like it, might even reciprocate. The more cautious part of her suspected it might make him more anxious and she’d end up flat on her ass on the sidewalk.

Darcy wrapped her arm around his metal prosthetic and looked up at him. “Is this okay?”

He tried to give her a smile, but it was weak. “Yeah, doll. That’s okay. Let’s go feed you.”

The walk to the pizza shop was uneventful and silent. The evening rush of people leaving work was thinning out, freeing up more space on the sidewalks. That helped him feel better, and by the time they reached the restaurant he was almost relaxed. Or at least as relaxed as he could be in a public place. She was pressed up against his side with his arm running down the length of her body from chest to hip as she clung to it. It felt wonderful, even if it was metal and only a little scary.

He ordered and insisted on paying while she waited at a little table by the door. He joined her to wait for the food, taking the chair that faced the entrance. Darcy had left it open for him just in case because she could see him trying so hard to keep his anxiety in check. She wished she could do something to help relieve him of some of it.

“Thanks for putting up with me,” he murmured softly, leaning across the table so she could hear him. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, what’d I tell you about apologies? I don’t want to hear them.” She rested an elbow on the table and propped her chin up with her hand. His face was inches from hers and his eyes looked so clear and so blue.

“Don’t matter what you want to hear,” Bucky said. “I’m sorry if I run hot and cold.”

“You do bottle yourself up sometimes. I can see you shut down.”

He leaned in a little closer, making the tiny table between them feel like it didn’t exist. “Spent a lot of years shutting down. Sam says I need to learn how to open back up. It ain’t so easy.”

“You can practice with me,” she said with a wink.

“I am,” he assured her. “Be patient with me, yeah?”

Darcy swallowed hard as she looked into his eyes. The flick of his tongue wetting his lips caught her attention and drew her gaze to his mouth. “I’ve got all the patience. So much patience.”

Bucky groaned and pulled out his phone. The screen said it was Steve calling. “What, punk?” Bucky said, answering.

She couldn’t hear what Steve said, but Bucky responded with, “I’m fine. Just leaving the library. I’ll be home in an hour or two.” He paused and Darcy could only assume Steve was questioning why it would take him so long to return. “Because I’m buying Darcy dinner,” he said into the mouthpiece.

A moment later she heard Bucky let out an abrupt bark of laughter. “Yeah,” he said, agreeing with whatever Steve said. “That’s exactly what you are.”

After he hung up, Darcy leaned forward and watched Bucky’s eyes drop to the little swell of cleavage she was showing. She wanted to know what exactly Steve was. “What was that about?” she asked.

“Just him acting like my fucking dad, checking up on me.”

“What exactly is he?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You told him that’s exactly what he is. What is he?”

Bucky lips twitched until he was smirking. “Exactly what you said he is. A cockblocker.”

As she suspected. Darcy grinned. “Oh, really?” she asked, dragging out the last word.

The guy at the counter yelled out an order number, and his booming voice made Bucky and Darcy both jump. Bucky quickly stood up and retrieved their food while Darcy grabbed napkins from a dispenser at their table.

She followed him out the door, looking at the large pizza he’d ordered. “I thought we were getting a slice?”

“You think a slice is going to fill me up?” he asked.

“Point taken,” she replied, leading the way over to a park across the street and up a block. They found a vacant concrete table with curved concrete benches on either side of it. She sat down on the end of one and he sat down right beside her instead of across from her.

Bucky slid the pizza box in front of them and opened it. The scent of it hit her in the face, and her stomach growled, making both of them laugh. Like a gentleman, Bucky waited until she picked the first slice up before he reached over and selected one. The cheese was gooey and the sauce was a little sweet, which was just the way she liked it. Darcy folded her slice in half and devoured it in silence. Half of her brain was thinking of how tasty her dinner was and the other half was considering how good it felt to have his right arm pressed against hers each time she took a bite. He was leaps and bounds better at touching her now than he’d been just a few days ago.

She was slowly working on her second slice while she watched him polish off a third. “Can we talk about why Steve asked me to help you?”

He faltered as he reached for his next slice. “I might have given him the idea.”

“Explain,” she said, taking a bite and watching him fold his fourth slice in half.

“He and Sam were on my ass about touch therapy and wanted me to let them or Sharon–that’s Steve’s girl–do it. Or even hire a professional. Steve and I got into an argument about it one day. I hadn’t slept for days, so I was… pretty irritable. I told him that I’d only let you do it.”

Darcy raised her brows. “Why me, though?” she asked around a mouthful of cheese and sauce.

He shook his head. “Hell, I don’t know, doll. I didn’t think he’d ever ask you, and even if he did, I thought you’d turn me down.”

“Why would I turn you down? You saw me looking.”

“Yeah, well, there’s a big difference between that and doing something about it. I see women looking, but I know most of ‘em would run the other way if they knew half of what you know about me.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “I think you’re grossly underestimating how hot you are.”

He laughed at her comment and finished his piece of pizza.

“You never answered my question, though,” she said. “Why me?”

Bucky shrugged. “I saw you every morning and listened to you talk to Steve sometimes. Maybe I was a little sweet on you.”

“Was?”

His arm rubbed against her shoulder when he lifted a hand to massage the back of his neck. “Am,” Bucky corrected.

Darcy felt those butterflies take flight in her stomach again. “I thought you didn’t care for me that much.”

“Well, like I said, Sam tells me I keep things bottled up too much. It’s habit. Trying to be better at that, but it’s tough.”

“Well, A plus for improvement, then. For someone who says he’s repressed, you’re really good at flirting.”

Bucky chuckled and wiped his hands on a napkin. “Remnants from my old life when I knew how to talk to dames.”

“So, I’m getting the full Bucky Barnes charms?”

“Mmm, maybe half, not full.”

She laughed. “Oh man, I don’t know what I’d do if I was getting the full panty-dropping version.”

“Panty-dropping?” he asked, brows raised. “You’re full of interesting turns of phrase, doll.”

“You’ve never heard that before? Panty-dropper? It usually refers to a guy with all the moves or maybe a really sexy song that gets a girl hot and bothered.” She finished her slice of pizza and wiped her fingers on a napkin.

Bucky closed the lid of the pizza box. There were only two slices left. “I’ll add that one to my list of dirty terms used by Darcy Lewis.”

“These are not of my making. They are commonly used.” She bumped her shoulder into his. “Hey, where’s my hugs? I only recall one this morning.”

He lifted his right arm and curled it around her shoulders, pulling her into his body. She turned to face him and wrapped her arms around his midsection, pressing her face into his chest and breathing deeply. “What are you doing?” he asked. She could hear the smile in his tone.

“Smelling you. Seriously, you need to bottle yourself. I’d spray it all over my bed.”

His chuckle rumbled deep in his chest, and he brought his left hand up to gently hold the back of her head. The tender, intimate gesture made her melt into him. “You’re crazy, doll,” he whispered.

“Little bit,” she agreed, making him chuckle again. “But you’re the one who decided I’d be a good hugging partner. Gotta deal with the consequences of your choice.”

“These are good consequences.” His voice was soft, and his lips were so close to her ear.

“Ugh, I’m pretty sure you got all your charm back, not just half,” she murmured into his chest. “Because I can’t handle you right now. Stop being so sweet.”

This made him laugh softly again. His metal arm whirred as he readjusted it to stroke his fingers through her hair. “Good to know I haven’t lost it completely. For a while there, I was sure I had.”

“Let me assure you that you haven’t lost it at all. Didn’t know you back in the olden days, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that you’re like a fine-ass wine, and you’ve aged so well.”

“Doll, you need to stop strokin’ my ego or I’ll get a big head,” he breathed the words into the hair just above her ear before pulling back and gently, but firmly, pushing her away with his hands on her shoulders. “Come on, I’ll take you home,” he said.

“Hmm, sounds promising,” she teased, wiggling her eyebrows at him as she stood up. She was under no illusions that he was taking her home to do anything other than see her to the door. Yeah, there was a little tension–a little teasing–but she could tell when a guy was being sweet and when he was really putting the moves on her. Bucky was being sweet, and maybe exploring how it is to talk to a woman again. He wasn’t looking for a roll in the hay, even if she would drop her panties in a hot second for him.

“I’m out past my curfew, apparently,” he told her, offering his right arm.

She hooked her left arm around it and let him lead the way back to the subway entrance by the library. “Tell Steve that I’m very careful with you and won’t break you.”

“I don’t know,” he said, slipping his hand in his pocket and pressing her arm into his side. “I’m easily breakable.”

She snorted and brought her right fist around to bump his shoulder. “Sure you are.”

They walked a couple blocks in silence. The streetlights had just blinked on as the sky darkened. Darcy felt like she’d had one of the best dates ever, and it wasn’t even a date. When they settled down in the subway car, he slipped his right arm over her shoulders and pulled her closer. Darcy closed her eyes and let her body relax into his.

“Thank you for helping me today,” he said. She had torn out the page in her notebook and given it to him to stash in his pants pocket. It wasn’t complete, but she felt like he should be the one to keep it since it was his life after all.

“No problem. Pleasure was all mine. I got pizza, hugs, and great company. Better than spending my night force-feeding Jane Pop Tarts or sitting in front of my television.”

“I had a good time, too. “ His breath was warm against her scalp as his lips brushed over her hair.

Darcy shivered. “Ooh, you give me goosebumps when you do that.”

He chuckled under his breath. She felt the vibration more than she heard the sound. “Should I apologize?”

“Fuck no,” she said. “Goosebumps means you’re doing something right. Don’t tell me you forgot that much from your time as the Howling Commandos’ foremost authority on women.”

“Just feeling you out,” he whispered, his fingertips lazily moving up and down the skin on her arm just below her shirt sleeve.

Darcy laughed softly. “I’m a little easy to read. I’m like the pre-test that is supposed to gear you up for the real one.”

“Nah,” he said. “That ain’t true at all, doll. You’re the real thing.”

Darcy was pretty sure every internal organ in her body just flipped right over at what he’d murmured in her ear. “Fuck, you’re good at this. You’re not playing fair.”

“Who said I had to be fair?” he asked.

“Not me,” she shot back. “I’m enjoying this. Proceed, Sarge.”

He was smiling when she tilted her head and turned it to look up at him. “You’ll regret encouraging me.”

Darcy raised her brows at him. “Somehow I doubt that. What are you gonna do? Get all handsy and flirty with me? I’m living the dream right now.”

“What if I ain’t leavin’ you at the door when I take you home?” There was mischief in his eyes for the first time since she’d met him. The vague threat–promise–tightened her core, and she wondered if he felt the way she shifted her hips and if he knew it was because of him.

“Promises, promises…” she said. “Don’t tease me if you aren’t gonna deliver.”

He tilted his head back and laughed.

They rode the rest of the way in comfortable silence, his fingers trailing up and down her arm. They walked the four blocks to her apartment in Greenpoint arm-in-arm. Darcy made sure to press herself as close as she could to him. If he wanted to tease, then that’s exactly what she'd do, too.

Like a true gentleman, he left her at her door with a lingering hug and a promise to see her in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to admit that I do have never been to NYC (despite living within a day's drive) and have very little experience with a subway system or how the city is laid out beyond assistance from Google Maps. So, please forgive any unintentional ignorance that comes through in the fic.
> 
> I love hearing from everyone who is reading, so thank you of the comments. Keep 'em coming! They feed my muse.
> 
> I will provide a list of the "soundtrack" to the fic later. They are just songs I was listening to while writing. If you'd like the names of the songs earlier, let me know. I'm happy to provide it.


	4. Chapter 4

> _“I tell myself you don’t mean a thing, and what we got got no hold on me.” - Paloma Faith (Only Love Can Hurt Like This)_

She was smacking the side of the printer, also known as the bane of her existence, when she looked up and saw Jane blocking the door with her diminutive body. Because Jane was so short and slight, Darcy could easily see that her good friend and employer was currently interrogating Bucky Barnes. Bucky’s eyes were wide and he was nodding emphatically at Jane. Darcy couldn’t even begin to imagine what Jane was telling him. Certainly nothing good.

She hadn't made it to the gym that morning. Jane called in a frenzy at four in the morning, saying she needed help inputting data. She really missed her daily dose of Bucky, but here he was in the flesh, looking for her.

“Jane, stop scaring the normals away,” she said, raising her voice to get the woman’s attention.

Jane turned around. “I’m not scaring anyone away, and he’s not normal. He’s actually...”

“Can it, Ms. Astrophysicist,” Darcy said. “He’s with me.” The printer picked that moment to begin working again.

Jane moved out of Bucky’s away and said, “I know he’s with you. I was asking him how your date last night was.”

“Oh, god, Jane, could you be any more embarrassing? He doesn’t know I want him to be my boyfriend yet. We haven't even talked about going steady.” Darcy winked at Bucky, and Jane tossed her hands in the air.

“I’m going back to work,” she said.

“Go get something to eat, Janie,” Darcy told her. “You skipped breakfast. There’s those little quiches you like in the mini fridge in the breakroom.”

Jane hummed in thought and then slipped out of the room to find food.

Darcy shrugged at Bucky. “She spends too much energy on thinking. Forgets to eat sometimes. I’m the opposite, so we balance each other out. Yin and yang, you know?”

“Like you and me?” he asked.

Darcy walked around to the front of the desk and sat down on the edge of it. Her feet, encased in a pair of green Chuck Taylor’s, dangled above the floor. “Oh no,” she said. “We're like yang and yang. Totally alike.”

He stepped closer and pressed his thigh up against the edge of the desk by her knee. “Do you wanna guess how many hours of sleep I got last night?”

“Two. No, three,” she said.

“Eight.”

Darcy raised her brows. “No shit?”

“No shit,” he agreed. “I had to come thank you since you weren’t in the gym this morning.”

“Yeah, Jane had emergency science to do. So, we're not having Kinko’s print up the banner about Cap being full of shit, I take it?”

“Nah, we should still do that,” Bucky told her, “but I think there might be something to this touch therapy.”

“Ahh, I see. You came to get your fix.” Darcy lifted a hand and poked his chest with her index finger. His muscles were as hard as Thor’s.

“I'm considering asking you to move in with me. I got a king size bed.”

She grinned at him and his serious expression broke into a smile. “But do you snore?” she asked.

“Hmm,” he said, “maybe. Haven't had any overnight visitors since I got outta cryo. You wanna risk it?”

“It's tempting. I do have this fantasy where I roll all over your bed like a dog so I can cover myself in your scent.”

He chuckled. “Or you could just borrow my deodorant.”

Darcy shot him a look that said he was crazy. “Don't get carried away with all that creepy shit, Barnes.”

“Oh, okay. Rolling all over my bed it is, then. Never been the type to tell a pretty girl she can't do that.”

“Such a man whore. It's a miracle you don’t have a dozen illegitimate children in their eighties.”

“Doll, I know how to wrap it up.”

She lifted a brow. “I bet you do.” Darcy scooted over so he could sit on the desk beside her. After he'd settled in, his thigh pressing down the side of her own, she said, “I'm glad Steve ratted you out to me because you're fun.”

His smile was bittersweet and that little touch of sadness made her heart thump a little harder for him. “Ain’t been called fun for a long time. Since before the war. Sure you're talking about me?”

“Positive,” she said. Darcy swayed into him, bumping her shoulder off his arm. “Hey, I'm glad you're getting some rest.”

Bucky sighed. “Me too. We just got word a few minutes ago that we’re leaving in a couple hours for a mission.”

Darcy frowned. She knew that he went out on official Avengers business, but knowing it and having him actually do it were two different things. “Where to?” she asked.

“South Africa. Might be gone a while. So, you were right. I was coming to get my fix.”

“Won’t there be girls for you to hug in South Africa?” As soon as the question left her mouth she wanted to take it back. They weren't anything other than strange friends who hugged for purely therapeutic reasons. Bucky was just getting his groove back by testing out his flirting skills on her. She didn't need to make something out of nothing.

He blew all of her logical reasoning right out of the water when he replied, “Yeah, but they won't be you.”

“You're real fucking smooth, you know that?” she said.

“Just callin’ it like I see it, doll.” He stood up and moved to stand in front of her. “You gonna give me my hugs or you gonna make me beg.”

“Oh, fine.” Darcy slipped off the desk and wrapped her arms around his neck. Bucky’s arms went around her as if it were second nature, and he pulled her so close she was flush against his body, his very delicious and hard body. If he kept her like this for much longer she'd sweat through her shirt. “Stay safe while you're gone, Barnes,” she whispered into his ear.

“I will. I got a library date with you to look forward to, don't I?” The fingers of his prosthetic were trailing up and down her spine. She shivered in pleasure, making Bucky chuckle.

“You're not playing fair. You know I get all gooey when you do that thing with your fingertips.”

This time he laughed harder. “What thing, doll? I was pretty sure I hadn't done that thing yet.”

“Get your mind outta the gutter,” she said. “I was talking about the rubbing thing.”

“Yeah, me too,” he agreed. “But the rubbing thing I was talking about definitely wasn't on your arm or your back.” His breath was pleasantly warm against her ear.

She laughed softly as he picked her up off the ground and tightened the hug. He really was very good at it, which was a little surprising when you considered that he’d basically been a killing machine for seventy years. Thinking about his past made her heart ache for him. Darcy brushed her lips up and down his jawline, feeling the roughness of his stubble. “Be careful,” she whispered in his ear. “See you when you get back. I’ll save you some hugs, and we can finish up that timeline of yours.”

Bucky sat her down, his hands lingering on her waist. In fairness, she hadn’t let go of his shoulders either. Her eyes were firmly on his wide chest and the thin, white T-shirt that covered it. Finally, after several long seconds, she let her hands slide down his shoulders to his chest. She pulled away when he removed his hands from her waist.

“See you around, doll,” he said, backing away slowly. His eyes, which were almost always distant and cold, were expressive now. He looked like he didn’t want to go with the way he was intently watching her as he created more space between them.

///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\

She’d only really known him–scratch that–spoken to him for a few days, and she was anxious over him getting hurt or killed out there in the world. Not that she wasn’t worried about Thor or Natasha or any number of other superheroes she knew, but there was just something that made her worry about _him_. Maybe it was because she had a big, fat, unavoidable crush on him. Sure, she’d had one for months, but now that she knew him a little better it was that much worse.

Without the ritual of daily hugs for the past week, she’d occupied herself by working with Jane in the lab and researching Bucky’s list of nameless assassinations in the library. She’d given the list back, but she remembered enough of his notes on three of the individuals that she at least had a place to start. She was scrolling through old newspapers from nineteen sixty-eight, looking for any mention of an execution style murder in Harlem when her phone vibrated across the table and the blue light indicating a text message started blinking.

Darcy rolled her eyes at the prospect of Jane needing her to come back into the lab. She’d been wrapping things up at the library with plans to pick up Chinese on her way home. Skipping dinner to work through the night didn’t sound very appealing. The text wasn’t from Jane, though.

**Bucky: How do you feel about flying to South Africa?**

Relief he was okay was the first thing that washed over her mind. The flip-flop of her stomach that he’d been thinking of her was quick on relief’s heels. She smiled and typed out a response.

**Darcy: I don’t know. I was just getting ready to order Chinese. I bet they won’t have quality NY Chinese food**

**Bucky: I haven’t slept more than five hours into the last three days**

**Darcy: That’s shitty. :-( I’m giving you a text hug right now. ((hug))**

**Bucky: I hate texting**

She smiled and glanced behind her. The library closed at seven and it was close to it. Most everyone was gone. Darcy pulled up the front-facing camera of her phone and snapped a picture of herself with her tongue sticking out. She made damn sure to fit in her cleavage that was exaggerated by the brand new push-up bra she’d put on that morning. She sent the picture off to him.

**Darcy: But do you like sexting?**

It took Bucky a couple minutes to respond. When he did, she laughed out loud.

**Bucky: Don’t know what that is but I’m on board if it means I get more of those**

**Darcy: I don’t think you’re ready for my mad skills at sexting, but I’ll send you some boobage now and then if it’ll help you sleep**

**Bucky: Steve is too smug. I’ve heard I told you so about twenty times in the past couple days. He’s trying to make me hug him now**

**Darcy: Dooooo it. And take a pic to send me**

**Bucky: If he weren’t being such a punk I’d hug him just to get some shut eye. And I ain’t sending you pictures of Steve**

**Darcy: :-( Party-pooper. Send me one of you. You still got that sexy scruff going on?**

Her phone went silent and the last call to exit the library was made. She packed up her bag, grabbed her phone, and headed to the door. Fifteen minutes later, she’d ordered her food and was on her way to pick it up before heading home. Maybe her request had annoyed him. No, he didn’t seem like someone who would be annoyed by that; he’d just tell her no way. What if he’d been called away to action? What if he was in trouble?

Her phone buzzed, and she opened it to find a very close-up picture of his face. His hair was tousled and pushed back from his face. He had the beginnings of a beard going on, and his eyes looked almost playful. Damn, he was hot. Hotter than any hundred-year-old had a right to be.

**Darcy: Do me, baby**

**Bucky: Don’t tempt me. Took me a long time to figure out how to work the camera. Did I sext?**

She stopped outside the restaurant to laugh at his question. If he only knew.

**Darcy: Pretty close to it. Gotta show a little more skin, though. Less clothing**

**Bucky: I just asked Clint. He told me what sexting is. Yeah let’s do that**

Darcy didn’t get his last message until she’d paid for her dinner and started her walk to the subway stop.

**Darcy: Jumping into the twenty-first century with both feet?**

**Bucky: You know it. I would call you out on changing the subject if I wasn’t in a bunker with six other guys who’d give me shit for sending you dirty messages**

**Darcy: Raincheck? I’m on the subway. Can’t flash my tits nice and proper**

**Bucky: Yes raincheck. Looking forward to it**

She laughed as she descended the steps to the subway, feeling giddy over her interaction with him.

**Darcy: I’ve been researching your nameless people. Think I might have found one**

**Bucky: You don’t have to do that doll**

**Darcy: I want to. Been bored without you to harass me**

**Bucky: Might be back next week I hope**

**Darcy: Saving all my hugs for you**

**Bucky: Can’t wait. Gotta go. Something came up here**

Her stomach dropped in fear for him. She stopped on the platform and texted him back quickly.

**Darcy: Be safe!**

She checked her phone twenty times on the short ride to her stop and her even shorter walk home. He didn’t respond, but, then again, she didn’t really expect him to. He was in a foreign country, possibly in hostile territory on a mission. Probably sleeping in the floor on of a small room with his teammates. She really hoped he would be safe.

She really wished she wasn’t getting attached. She really wished he wasn’t so damn sweet to her.

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Darcy was curled up on the end of the couch watching reruns of The Office in an old pair of shorts and a tank top. She had the window open and a fan sitting in front of it to pull in the cooler night air. It had been an especially hot day, and her place didn’t have air conditioning. It had taken a while, but by ten o’clock the apartment was tolerable. She might even be able to sleep. The episode was almost over, and she’d promised herself she would go to sleep so she wasn’t like the walking dead in the morning for her workout. She’d be lying if she said that a big motivator to show up at the gym every morning wasn’t hoping that he’d be there. He never was. Neither was Steve for that matter. They’d been gone for just over two weeks, and Darcy didn’t like it one bit. Texting him for a few minutes a week ago just wasn’t enough.

Like the biggest loser ever, she’d been keeping her phone near her since then, hoping he’d text again. He hadn't. There had been so many false alarms, most of which were Jane and her damn science. What was surely another false alarm had just made her phone ding. Darcy picked it up and checked her messages.

**Bucky: Got back a few hours ago and I'm going insane. Can't sleep**

Her reaction and response was immediate.

**Darcy: Come over**

**Bucky: Open the door**

Darcy stared at the message for a full minute trying to understand what it meant. Open what door? Her apartment door? He couldn't possibly be outside. No fucking way. She walked over and flipped the lock to check anyway. Sure enough, the door opened to reveal a very tired-looking Bucky Barnes in the hallway. He was leaning against the wall across from her door with his phone held loosely in his left hand. He was in a pair of black tactical pants that had dirt up the side and long-sleeved shirt, which he probably wore to hide his arm even in this heat.

“Hi,” he said. “My head’s all fucked up, and it thinks I can't sleep without the hugs.”

“Are you sure Steve and Sam don't know what they're talking about? I mean, I looked touch therapy up, and it's a real thing. Like, there is such a thing as cuddle parties to improve mental and physical health.”

“Nah, you've just got my head messed up. I came to get my hugs and then I'll go.”

She opened the door wider and stepped back to let him enter. “What? You're gonna do the walk of shame back to headquarters at this time of night.” Darcy shut the door behind him. “You can stay the night if you want. Take my bed; I'll crash on the couch.”

“Not a chance, doll. I ain't takin’ your bed.” He stepped over past the cubby where her bed was so he could stand beside her coffee table in the small studio. He made everything look even smaller.

Darcy put her hands on her hips. “When was the last time you slept?”

“Yesterday.”

“How long did you sleep?”

He hesitated. “Fifteen minutes.”

“Call your chaperone and tell him you're having a sleepover at my place,” Darcy told him.

Bucky laughed softly under his breath as he absently rubbed the back of his neck. “I ain't gotta tell Steve shit.” He looked up from the floor and said, “Come on and hug me so I can get outta your hair.”

She stepped over to stand in front of him. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, and Darcy reciprocated, wrapping hers around his waist. Bucky folded his body over and into hers and sighed. They stayed like that for almost a minute, with just the sound of their breathing and the low murmur of the television.

“You smell damn good for just getting back from a mission,” she told him.

“Got back earlier this afternoon and took a shower. Tired to get some sleep, but… couldn't. Just laid there and thought about you.”

She set aside that last little comment for further review in her head when he wasn't covering her and making thought a monumental task of will power. “Why are your pants wrecked, then?”

Bucky pulled away from her and glance down at his pants. “Ah, fuck. I… I pulled on the first pair I found when I decided to come over here. Wasn't thinking straight.”

Darcy laughed at him before reaching out to take his right hand. “Come on, big guy. Let's go snuggle so you can get some shut eye.”

“Okay,” he agreed, following her around the coffee table to sit on the couch.

She sat down at the far end and motioned for him to lie down. “Put your head here,” Darcy said, patting her lap. “I bet I can make you fall asleep in fifteen minutes.”

After a moment of hesitation, he let himself relax and lie down on his side with his head resting on her thigh. Darcy gently and methodically untangled his dark hair. After she’d finished, she gently dragged her fingernails over his scalp and down his neck to where it met his shoulder. Just like she promised, within fifteen minutes his body was relaxed and he was very obviously unconscious. It felt so good to help him with something he couldn't do for himself.

Even though he was asleep, breathing steady and deep, she continued to massage his scalp with her fingertips. Looking down his body all she could see was the glimmer of the prosthetic in the low light of her living room and the smudges of dirt on his pants. She should have made him take them off before lying down on her couch. He'd just looked so run down and tired that pushing him with more teasing that might make him uncomfortable seemed cruel. Besides, she could clean the couch, right?

Shortly after eleven o’clock she stopped running her fingers through his hair and tried to slip his head off her lap and onto a throw pillow. If he wouldn't sleep in the bed, then she’d let him sleep on the couch. Just as she stood up on tingly, half-asleep legs, he jerked awake with a gasp. He pushed up into a seated position, his body coiled to strike out at anyone who came near.

“Hey,” she said softly, holding a steadying hand out at him, “it's just me. You fell asleep on my lap.”

Bucky pulled in a deep breath before exhaling sharply. It only took a couple seconds for his body to relax and acknowledgement of where he was to bleed back into his eyes. “I should go,” he said.

“You only slept for a half hour. Go crash on my bed, Bucky.”

“I shouldn't,” he replied, shaking his head and standing up. “How'd you knock me out so fast?”

“Baseball bat,” she joked.

He glanced over and gave her a soft smile.

“I played with your hair. That always does it for me, too.” Darcy walked behind the screen that separated her bed from the living room area and flipped back the covers on the bed. “Come here,” she told him

Bucky appeared behind her. “Really, doll. I should go home,” he said when he saw she was offering her bed again.

“Don’t make me beat you up. Get in the bed. I fall asleep on the couch half the time anyway.” She jutted her hip out and settled her hand on it, trying to give him just enough attitude that he would stop arguing with her about something so silly.

After a long moment of staring her down, he acquiesced and toed his boots off. He really wasn’t all that intimidating after you knew him.

“Pants off, too. These are fresh sheets.”

He looked up at her, something she couldn’t quite read in his eyes. His hesitation only lasted for a couple seconds before his hands dropped to the button and zipper on his pants. Bucky’s eyes never left her as he dealt with the fastenings, only dropping his gaze when he dropped the pants to the floor.

Darcy’s mouth was suddenly dry, and she didn’t know where to look. He was wearing a pair of black boxer briefs that were stretched tight over his thighs and rode a little low on his hips. Everything was fun and games until you had a hot-as-fuck former assassin standing next to your bed in his sexy underwear. All that flirty game she'd been talking just scattered to the wind as she was faced with exactly how good he looked and how far out of her depth she was with him.

To break the tension she reached down and flipped the covers back a little further. “Go on,” she told him. “Want me to tuck you in?”

“Doll, I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Nope. In the bed.” She waited there until he sat down the edge, and then she said, “Night, Bucky,” to his back.

“Goodnight, doll,” he said, still not turning to face her.

She flipped the television off and turned off the lamp on her end table. After sitting down on the couch, she pulled the little knit blanket from the back of it and settled in, using a throw pillow for her head. The apartment was still a little warm–not uncomfortable, but definitely not cool enough to be covering up. She draped the blanket across her midsection for comfort and tried to forget that _he_ was sleeping in her bed just a couple yards away. The folding screen with watercolor flowers painted on it hid him from her view, but her mind kept picturing him lying there with a sheet draped oh-so-casually over his body.

She stared at the shadows on the ceiling cast by the streetlight outside for over twenty minutes before she finally closed her eyes. Sleep was eluding her, and she knew it was because of her visitor. Darcy opened her eyes and found him standing a few feet from the couch. For a moment her brain just registered that a big, potentially dangerous man was creeping toward her.

She gasped and sat up. “Fuck, you scared me.”

He held out a hand, palm facing toward her. “I'm sorry. I… I'm gonna go. Can't sleep, and I think I'm making you uncomfortable.”

“Bucky, get back in bed,” she groused at him as she pushed her hair away from her face. “You don't make me uncomfortable.”

“I can't sleep,” he admitted, his voice whisper soft.

“You want me to play with your hair again?” she asked, turning to put her feet on the floor.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Nah, you don't have to.”

Darcy pushed herself up off the couch. “Would it help you sleep?”

“Maybe,” he conceded.

“Come on,” Darcy said, walking past him. “This better not be some trap to get me into bed with you, player.”

He laughed softly under his breath and said, “Maybe,” again

Gingerly, she slipped into the bed, kicking the covers down because it was still too warm for them. Bucky was standing on the other side of the bed, watching her, his eyes wide in the dark. For a moment Darcy wondered if he was feeling those same emotions she was–out of his depth after all that flirty talk. The sympathetic side of her offered him a hand by patting the mattress next to her. “I can't touch you if you stand all the way over there.”

He stared at her for a moment before slipping into bed to her left. The bed was a full size one, and the two of them were pressed together without even really trying. His body was rigid and his movements were stilted and painfully careful.

She rolled onto her side and laid a hand on his chest. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly and fully. “You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Just been a while since I shared a bed with someone.”

“You mean to tell me you haven't capitalized on your status as Cap’s bad boy, heartthrob, best friend?” Darcy suspected it hadn't even occurred to Bucky to do such a thing. It just made her like him that much more.

“Nah. Ain't my style. Maybe a long time ago it was, but… not anymore.”

Darcy laid her head on his shoulder–the flesh and blood one–and moved the hand on his warm chest up to tug at his hair, tucking a lock of it neatly behind his ear. Bucky sighed and closed his eyes. He shifted his right arm to curl around her.

“You like that?” she asked softly.

“Mmmm.” His assent was hummed, his chest rumbling pleasantly as he agreed.

Darcy smiled and dragged her nails across his scalp from his forehead to the crown of his head. He shivered under her hand. “Oh,” she said with a little smile growing on her face. “I found your weakness.”

“You?” he asked with his eyes still closed, not missing a damn beat.

She scratched his scalp again, her nails barely touching his skin. “This,” she told him.

“Mmmm,” he agreed again.

She tried not to think about these little comments he spouted off that made her feel special to him. She'd get too attached if she considered them, thought about how he might feel for her. She was a tool to help him heal, a friendly shoulder. And yet, here she was sharing her bed with him and running her fingertips through his hair with more tenderness than she'd given anyone in a long time, maybe in forever.

He fell asleep in five minutes, his right arm curled around her. She fell asleep in fifteen, her fingers still buried in his hair.


	5. Chapter 5

> _”And I could only have you in my dreams. Oh, so it seems, so it seems.” - Sevdaliza (Bluecid)_

Darcy awoke ten minutes before her alarm was set to go off. She was alone in her bed, and there was no sign of Bucky. The first thing she felt was a flash of disappointment, but she wasn’t all that surprised he’d left. Honestly, she wasn’t sure how to go about a morning after when she hadn’t even slept with the guy. Well, she’d _slept_ with him, but just that. All that intimacy and they’d never even kissed. It felt strange–like dangerous and uncharted territory. What the hell were they to each other?

With all the will power she could manage, she pushed herself out of bed and shuffled into the bathroom to throw her hair up in a high ponytail, brush her teeth, empty her bladder, and switch into workout gear. It was her abbreviated morning routine for days she exercised. Bucky was heavy on her mind as she wondered how he was, if he’d slept much last night, and what he thought of her. She shuffled into the kitchen and pulled two bottles of water out of the fridge.

Her work clothes were already in her gym bag, ready to go. She walked over to where it sat by the door with her arms full of bottled water and her cell phone, which was low on battery since she hadn’t charged it the previous night. It wasn’t until she reached down to put the bottles down that she noticed the small, handwritten note on top of the bag.

_**Darcy,** _

_**Thank you for helping me sleep last night.** _

_**Bucky** _

She stowed the water away and dropped her phone into the bag before picking up the note. His penmanship was elegant, all effortless angles as he swept the pen across the paper. While she wasn’t surprised that he’d slipped out early in the morning, she was surprised to find the thoughtful note addressed to her. It made her like him that much more, which was not something she needed. You are a tool to help him heal, she told herself. Don’t get all mushy over him.

On days like this when the weather was nice, she walked from her apartment in Greenpoint to the Avenger’s residential and research facility in Williamsburg. The walk was just over twenty-five minutes and taking the subway didn’t shave much time off that commute. She swiped her badge to get into the building at five ‘til six, and waved to the burly and bearded security guard who worked the desk most mornings. His name was also Steve. He had a wife and three kids, and he loved to golf in his free time. He didn’t look like a golfer, but Darcy had learned that people were sometimes just full of surprises. After giving him a wave, she walked over to the two elevators and rode one up to the fourth floor. She had to open her eyes wide next to the retina reader to get the elevator moving. Everything above the third floor of was restricted.

The six story building was a sprawling mass that covered a good bit of the city block, but there was an interior courtyard, two landing pads on the roof, and several apartments in the upper half of the building. Many of the Avengers stayed in the building when they weren’t traveling for missions, but it wasn’t common knowledge. When she actually thought about it, Darcy couldn’t really believe she was where she was–working out of a somewhat secret facility and exercising in a gym that was probably a floor away from where extraordinary people who save the world live. Not to mention, letting one of those extraordinary people sleep in her bed. With her, no less.

The gym was empty when she arrived, and the lights were off. She felt a tiny little twist of disappointment that he wasn’t there, but pushed the feeling down. She queued up the workout program for the morning–an easy one with low tension that would only last thirty minutes–and dropped her phone onto the console while a bottle of water settled into the cup holder. She was only five minutes into her workout, when Steve walked through the door and gave her a smile and wave. Bucky was right behind him. His eyes went to her immediately, and he gave her his usual nod of acknowledgement.

Business as usual, then. Part of her was disappointed and the other part of her was annoyed at herself for feeling that way.

“How was the mission?” she asked Steve.

He was piling about three hundred pounds of weight on a barbell, but looked up at her to say, “Long, but we did some good work.”

“Get any sleep while you were gone, Bucky?”

He turned around to look at her. “Nah,” he answered, “not much.”

Her suspicion that Steve had no idea Bucky had snuck out the previous night to stay at her place was confirmed. That familiar feeling of not being surprised, but still feeling a little disappointment was in the forefront of her mind. “You still working on touch therapy with her like Sam said?” Steve asked his friend.

“Yeah,” Bucky answered. “Didn’t want to bother her last night.” He was looking straight at her when he said that. “It’d be rude to interrupt her evening.”

“I don’t mind at all, Bucky,” she told him. Like he didn’t know that already when they’d fallen asleep all wrapped around each other with her hand in his hair.

“I’d feel like an asshole,” he said.

Steve smiled at Bucky and said, “She wants to help you, Buck. Why don’t you let her?”

“Keep out of it,” he snapped at Steve.

The three of them fell into silence that was a little uncomfortable at first. As the minutes ticked away the tension dissipated until it felt like a usual morning session. She finished her program and spared a glance at Bucky before slipping out of the gym. There were two locker rooms across the hall. The women’s was to the left. This time of morning it was always deserted and she had the place to herself. She quickly showered and towel-dried her hair before she wrapped herself up in the fluffy white towel and walked over to the vanity where she kept her hair dryer and other toiletries.

A soft knock at the door made her jump. Darcy clutched the closing of the towel over her chest as she turned around to find half of Bucky’s head in the cracked doorway. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Wanted to thank you,” he said, not opening the door any further. His eyes swept down her body, and suddenly Darcy was aware that she was naked under the towel.

“You already did with the note. Don’t just stand there with the door open, dude.”

He slipped inside and leaned his back into the closed door, focusing his gaze on the floor at her feet. “Steve doesn’t know I came over.”

Darcy raised a brow. “Obviously.”

Bucky looked very uncomfortable. “I don’t want to hear him rib me about you.”

“Why would he do that?”

“He thinks I’m sweet on you, and he’s been pushing me to ask you out.”

Darcy narrowed her eyes. “Are you?”

“What? Sweet on you?” He laughed softly and looked up to meet her eyes. “What do you think?”

“Fuck if I know. You run hot and cold. One minute you’re flirting with me hardcore and the next I don’t even rate a good morning.”

“I… I, uh, compartmentalize? That’s what Sam calls it. He says it’s good sometimes and bad sometimes. It means I keep sections of my life separate.”

Darcy nodded. “I know what it means.”

“I guess I’m doing that with you. I just… don’t want to share what…” He paused and then dropped his head to look at the floor between his feet. “Hell, I don’t know.”

“No, I think I get it. I mean, I understand. Maybe. Does that make it easier for you to be yourself with me?” Darcy asked. “I mean, you _are_ yourself with me, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course. Because when it’s you and me, then it’s just you and me, and I can be who I want with you.”

“So, not exactly the healthiest attitude, but I got you.”

He smiled at her, but it looked broken and sad. “I told you I was fucked up, and you didn’t want to get involved with all this therapy stuff.”

Darcy swiped her hand through the air as a way of silencing the bullshit coming out of his mouth. “Shut up, Barnes.” She adjusted the towel and said, “So, how long did you sleep last night? I think you passed out as soon as I came to bed.”

“I did. Woke up around twenty ‘til five.”

“Good sleep?”

“Great sleep,” he corrected. “The best sleep I’ve had in a long time.” He paused and then said, “Thank you,” so very softly, his downcast gaze looking almost shy.

“Jesus, Barnes, you got the aww shucks thing going on with the bad boy thing, and it’s making me want to give you an open invitation to my bed.” And it was the truth. If she had her way, he’d come over every night. Never did Darcy think she’d see the day when she would want a guy to sleep in her bed without sex being involved. She normally liked her space to spread out in bed when orgasms weren’t happening.

“Don’t want to take advantage,” he replied, but his mouth was turned up in a little grin.

“Do it. Because I slept so good, too. You’re practically doing me a favor.”

He took three slow, tentative steps toward her. “In that case... “

“You better keep your hands in safe zones unless you wanna start something and have Steve walk in on us banging on the vanity,” she teased.

Bucky chuckled and stopped in front of her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. The left one whirred as the plates adjusted for her. She could only hear it because he was so close. Trusting that the towel would stay where it was, pressed between their bodies, she encircled his waist to hug him back. Her heart skipped a beat when he pressed a kiss to the crown of her head.

“I need to get back to the gym, “ he whispered into her hair. “I told Steve I needed to take a piss.”

“I feel like I’m your dirty little secret,” she halfway teased.

Bucky pulled back, his face serious and his hands landing on her bare shoulders. “You’re _not_. I just… I’m trying.”

Darcy smiled at him. “I know you are.”

“Why do you want to spend time with me?” he asked, his fingers curled around her shoulders. The contrast between the left and the right was surreal.

“I like you,” she replied immediately. “And,” Darcy added with a wink, “you’re a pleasure to stare at.”

“Be serious with me, doll,” he said, watching her intently.

“I was being serious. I _do_ like you.”

He looked like he didn’t believe her, but she wasn’t sure how to make him believe something she couldn’t do anything more to prove. “Can I bring you dinner tonight?” he asked after a long moment of tense silence.

“Uh, fuck yes,” she said.

He laughed softly under his breath and let go of her shoulders. “You should put some clothes on,” he said, taking a step back from her and then another.

“Why?” she asked.

“Too tempting. I’m trying to be a good boy, but it’s hard.”

“Oh yeah? What’s hard?”

He grinned and kept backing away one step at a time. “Get your mind outta the gutter, doll.”

She raised her brows. “You put it there, Barnes.”

He gave her a panty-dropping wink before he pushed the door open and left.

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He’d shown up at seven o’clock with a paper bag that had a tray of spaghetti and meatballs and a bag of a dozen breadsticks. She’d wanted to immediately give him a hug because he’d looked nervous, but the bag had been in front of him like a shield. They were sitting side-by-side on the couch now, curled over the coffee table while they polished off the tray. Actually, Bucky had eaten the lion’s share, but she was stuffed herself.

She pushed her plate away and sat back on the couch. “Thank you for dinner.”  
He finished the last bite of food on his plate and sat back beside her, his shoulder brushing up against hers. “I wanted to thank you for last night. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I didn’t mind at all,” she said.

“I appreciate it all the same, doll.”

“Did you sneak out to see me so your overbearing father doesn’t know we’re making time together?” she teased.

“Nah, I told him I was coming to see you. Said I needed to get my hugs for the day so I can sleep.”

“Did you tell him it helps you sleep then?”

“Yeah.”

“Is he unbearably smug?”

Bucky rolled his head over to look at her. “He is. But I can't say shit because I feel better than I've felt in a long time.”

“I'm glad,” Darcy said. “I do aim to please.” She shifted next to him and lifted his arm up to drop it back behind her. He took the hint and curled it around her shoulders so she could settle into his side.

“I thought this would be harder than it is,” he admitted.

“Thought what would be harder?”

“You. This.”

“This?”

“This,” he said again, pulling her closer.

“Oh, _this_ ,” she said, sliding one of her hands over his stomach and diagonally across his chest to curl her fingers over his opposite shoulder.

“You're a bad influence,” Bucky told her.

“You're the one who was giving me sad eyes last night until I came to bed with you, _and_ the one who walked into the women's locker room while I was in a towel. How am I the bad influence?”

“Hmm, you've got a point there,” he conceded. His right arm was still around her, and he'd moved his hand up to gently tug at a piece of her long hair.

Darcy laid her face on his chest and listened to the steady thump of his heart in one ear and the rerun of Friends playing on her television with the other. It felt nice to just be with him, to relax and enjoy the low grade warmth that was rolling off his body and the way he made her feel secure, but not trapped, when he held her.

They sat there for more than an hour watching a couple old reruns. Conversation was minimal, but that was okay. At nine o’clock, he shifted his body away from her and pushed himself up off the couch. Disappointment was creeping up on her because she'd been hoping he'd stay the night.

“Gotta run, Cinderella?” she asked.

He nodded. “Unfortunately.”

“You know you're always welcome to stay, right?” She was looking up at him from her spot on the couch.

“Don't wanna overstay my welcome.”

“Not possible. Trust me.” Darcy stood up and walked him to the door. “Hey, you wanna hit the library tomorrow? I made some progress on your list of nameless people.”

“Yeah. Pick you up at the lab?” He’d opened the door and was standing in it, his shoulder pressed into the doorjamb.

“Yeah, at four. I'll take you out for dinner and hugs after if you want.”

“I'll always want that. Except I'll pay for dinner,” he said.

“Woah, there Barnes. I thought these weren't dates, and there you go trying to be the man.”

“A girl like you shouldn't have to pay,” he said, looking down at her with those smoldering eyes.

“I usually go Dutch ‘cause I'm a modern chick.”

“Dutch?”

She rolled her eyes, but the way he needed help with slang was kinda adorable. “Share the cost equally. Especially, if it isn't a date.”

“Yeah, well, I'll pay.” He stepped out into the hallway.

Darcy grinned, feeling giddy. “You trying to tell me it's a date, Sargeant Hottie?”

“I'll leave that up to you to decide.”

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The next morning he’d given her a smile and a “Morning, Darcy,” before starting his routine of lifting weights and doing an ungodly amount of squats over by the wall of mirrors. Darcy had stared unabashedly at his ass each time he’d squatted down in perfect form. He’d spent most of the morning watching her as she watched him with a barely-there smirk on his face. Darcy had only looked away long enough to see that the tension between them hadn’t gone unnoticed by Steve.

She breezed through her day, running errands and picking up what Jane claimed to be a very important part to repair one of the pieces of monitoring equipment. It was almost four by the time she got back to the nondescript, blocky building that housed so many secrets. Jane tried to guilt her into staying late to finish the repairs–she needed someone to hold the light while she soldered the piece into place–but Darcy did something unusual and told her friend she had plans. Before plans always took a backseat to science, and Jane even pointed that out. Darcy informed her that when those plans involve a certain ex-assassin with a metal arm then science was just going to have to wait. Jane didn’t argue, probably because she knew she’d lose the battle.

Bucky was almost timid when he lightly knocked on the door of the lab before cracking it open. Jane was too immersed in her work to even notice the presence of another human being. Darcy smiled at him and said, “Ready for our not-a-date?” She grabbed her canvas messenger bag off her chair and slung it over her shoulder.

“Never said it wasn’t a date,” he murmured, holding the door open for her.

“You never said it was, either.” She slipped past him and out the door, catching a whiff of his scent–all clean and fresh and manly. When could they get to the cuddling part of the evening? As soon as possible, she hoped.

They hopped on the subway just a few blocks from the facility and took it into Manhattan. Darcy told him she wanted to try a different library in Midtown that might have more information. She could easily see the effort he had to expend to sit in the crowded, rush hour subway car and not panic. It made her feel like an idiot for not thinking of him, especially knowing what she did about his past and how he’d behaved the last time they’d made a trip to the library.

“Hey,” she told him, reaching over to lace her fingers with his. “I’m sorry; I didn’t think about how crowded it would be at this time of day.”

He leaned into her so he didn’t have to raise his voice. “It’s okay, doll. I need to get used to this. You’re helping me.” Bucky squeezed her hand, holding onto her firmly and not letting go until they were at their stop.

The walk to the library was quick, but the sidewalks were congested. Bucky shadowed her, his hand hovering at the small of her back and his body coiled to strike the entire way there like he was her bodyguard or something. Old habits must die hard, Darcy thought. She appreciated that Bucky was firmly on her side in a crisis. Something told her he wouldn’t let anyone or anything touch her. However, she was also sad for him that life boiled down to everything leading up a fight.

They found a desk with an open computer near the back wall of the library and settled in there with her notebook of findings, his original list, and the timeline she’d created for him, both of which were fold up in his pocket.

“So,” she said turning in the chair to face him as he sat down beside her. “I think the man you said you killed in fifty-one was probably a former scientist for Nazi Germany named Volker Klein. He defected to the United States in late forty-four. He’d been working on a mind control program for the Nazis, but smuggled his research out and brought it here to Philadelphia while the War was happening. Probably didn’t sit well with HYDRA that he picked us and not them, especially since he was super smart and the research was promising. I mean, it’s kinda gross that our government was totally willing to put someone on the payroll who was trying to develop mind-control drugs that could be sprayed over a populated area by plane, but… well, not completely surprising.”

“Jesus,” Bucky muttered.

Darcy nodded. “Yeah, really. So, you probably shouldn’t feel too bad about this one. He was developing some really shady shit. But, he matches your description–seventies, white mustache, German accent. Plus, the location you gave me was his second lab, the one that wasn’t affiliated with the government. His obit didn’t say how he died, but the articles out of Philly the next day say that an elderly scientist jumped four stories off an office building in the suburbs.”

“I dragged him up the stairs,” Bucky admitted, his eyes staring off into the middle distance. He was far removed from the present, probably remembering something that happened so many decades ago. “They wanted him to work for them.”

“Yeah, makes sense. His trials with chimps had been successful. I can’t find much on his research, but there is some crazy conspiracy theory site that had some info. Maybe it wasn’t so crazy after all.”

“I was told to scare him and bring him in. He… he begged for his life when I held him over the edge of the roof.”

She put her hand on his knee, trying to pull him back into the library with her.

Bucky shook his head. “I… He fell. I didn’t mean to… My orders were to bring him in.”

“Was it an accident?”

“I don’t know, “ he admitted, looking down at her hand on his leg. “Maybe I pushed him. Those weren’t my orders.”

“Do you think maybe you pushed him on purpose? Maybe you knew what he was capable of.”

“I don’t think they brought me out of cryo for five years after that.” The look on his face was making her heart ache for him. His life was so jumbled, so many years confused, or lost, or just plain deleted from existence.

She looked at the timeline on the desk and compared it to the list of assassinations. Nothing between fifty-one and fifty-eight. “Yeah,” she agreed. “So you did something you weren’t supposed to, and they think you aren’t reliable?”

Bucky ran a hand roughly through his hair before shaking his head back and forth as if he were trying to clear his mind. “Fuck, doll. I don’t know. I… I just… Maybe.”

“Well, I mean, that’s good. That could have been a disaster if they got Klein and all his research on mind control substances. I mean, we could be living under HYDRA right now.”

“Maybe he just fell.”

“Maybe,” she agreed. “Or maybe there was still a little piece of you in there who knew what he was doing.”

Bucky’s eyebrows furrowed and the corners of his mouth turned down. “They beat me.”

“Who beat you? HYDRA?”

“They did that often when I was first captured. After the operation, they would give me small missions that first year or five or, hell, whatever. It’s hard to remember how long. But they’d beat me, use cattle prods, if I fucked up.”

“Bucky,” she squeezed his leg right above his knee. “I’m sorry.”

He waved away her concern and said, “No, it’s okay. It was a long time ago. But I had been on missions in forty-nine and fifty, right?”

She nodded after consulting the timeline. “Yeah, one assassination in forty-nine and two in fifty.”

“They stopped beating me then. Because I was performing to standards. I remember that. I remember relief. Then it started again.”

“They punished you for Klein,” she said. “You killed someone they wanted you to abduct.”

“I don’t know how. How could I have done that? I was following orders.”

“Not that time, it seems. Hell, I’m glad you didn’t follow orders. Things could have been real bad if you had.” He looked shell-shocked, and she didn’t know how to help him. “Hey,” she said softly, reaching up and sliding her hand over his jaw. “Bucky, it’s okay. You did a good thing.”

His gloved left hand came up to press her fingers more firmly to his face. He looked bereft and lost. She watched as he turned his face, brushing his lips over her palm. “Do you have a picture of him? I would recognize him.”

“Of course,” she said, pulling her hand away and letting her fingers fly over the keyboard, searching for the website she’d found the previous week during her research while he was away. She’d dismissed the site as a little too tinfoil-hat with all the elaborate theories and lack of named sources, but maybe it wasn’t all that far from the truth if Bucky had actually been involved. She found it easily and pulled up the page relating to the experiments carried out by Dr. Volker Klein. The picture of him was black and white and grainy, but he matched the vague description Bucky had supplied, and his lab was the location Bucky remembered.

She looked over at Bucky to ask if the man in the picture was familiar, but she didn’t need to voice the question. The answer was all over Bucky’s face.

“That’s him, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “Yeah, it is.”

Darcy reached around to place a hand on his back, rubbing the dip between his shoulder blades. “You did a great thing, Bucky,” she said. “I know it might not feel like you did, but someone like him is too dangerous, no matter the side he’s on. He was trying to control people, just like you were controlled against your will.”

He jerked his eyes away from the screen to look at her. “Yeah,” he nodded quickly. “I know. I just... it brought back a lot of memories.”

She slid her hand over his shoulder to curl her fingers around the bicep of his left arm. It felt strange even though she knew she should have expected the metal prosthetic. “You wanna talk about them over dinner?”

Now he was shaking his head. “No. No, I’m fine. I… let’s move on.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, what’s next.”

“Bucky, we really don’t have to. Why don’t we go get an early dinner and watch a movie at my place.”

He took her hand in his and removed it from his arm. “I’m fine, doll. Let’s add it to the timeline and look at the next one.”

“I didn’t have much luck with the two in the sixties and the one in eight-seven. Maybe we’d do better starting with the most recent one that you can’t place.”

“Two thousand four,” he agreed. “It was a man in his early sixties, probably. Salt and pepper hair, clean-shaven, just under six feet tall, in a motel room in Phoenix. They gave me his picture and his location, but no name.”

“Do you know why they wanted him dead?”

“No,” Bucky replied. “I wasn’t often given reasons, and I didn’t think to ask for them.” He seemed ashamed of that.

“Hey, don’t you go blaming yourself for any of this. They did this, not you.”

“I did it. They just gave the orders.”

“Not to say I know your life better than you, but that's kinda bullshit, Bucky. You were brainwashed and conditioned to follow their orders.” She winced when she realized her soft voice had gotten progressively louder in the quiet library. Dropping back down to a whisper, she said, “You just told me that they used a cattle prod on you to keep you in line in the beginning. Fuck, man.”

He gave her a broken smile. “I love your filthy mouth as much as the next guy, but you're gonna tell the whole place who I am if you keep reprimanding me.”

“I'm telling you how awesome you are, not reprimanding you,” she corrected.

“Felt like I was getting a lecture,” he murmured, that pathetic smile on his face growing into a real one.

“Oh, you'll _know_ when you're getting a lecture. Don't doubt that.” She poked his chest with her index finger. It was rock solid. “Ugh. You’ve got, like, muscles on top of muscles. Where do you get off being so perfect?”

“I can teach you how to get muscles if that's what you want.”

Darcy raised her brows. “But I've already got muscles.”

He grinned. “Okay, lemme see ‘em.”

She reached out and trailed her index finger over his right bicep and then across the width of his chest. “They're right here.”

“My muscles?” He chuckled softly. “Yeah. Okay. You're right; they do belong to you.” His eyes were shining with humor when he met her gaze. Darcy felt proud of herself for pulling him out of the dark place he'd been in, and she felt a little giddy over his admission, too.

“So,” she said, clearing her throat. “What do you say we narrow down the motels in Phoenix?” The city reminded her of her grandfather. He'd died there years ago in a stupid accident. Thankfully, that accident didn't involve a bullet to the head, but a fall in a slippery bathtub.

Bucky’s face fell into that cold expression so quickly. She regretted bringing it up, but soldiered on. He said, “It was a Red Roof Inn, but I don't know where. The special ops team dropped me off at the corner. They said the target was a skilled operative with extensive combat training and evasion tactics. They brought me in to avoid a botched mission.”

“You da best,” Darcy joked. He frowned at her and she added. “Sorry. Too soon for a joke about being the best assassin with the bangin’-est ass?”

“I didn't understand the last part that came out of your mouth, but context and spending time with you tells me that you're sayin’ you like my ass.”

“You got it in one, babe,” she told him with a grin. “So, let's just look up these skeezy motels and see if one looks familiar. They can’t have remodeled too much in the past fourteen years.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know so many of you were looking for a cuddly morning after, but Bucky's still too skittish. I will promise you that she'll be very comfy in HIS bed by the end of the fic, though.
> 
> Thank you for all the lovely feedback and happy comments. Each of them makes me smile. ;-)


	6. Chapter 6

> _“Little less talking ‘bout, wanna know when you’re gonna come around. What you waiting for when I’m here right now?” - DVSN (With Me)_

They spent two hours looking for the right motel, eventually narrowing it down to two possibilities, before calling it quits and packing up. They walked past an old diner with neon lights outside that were on, even though the sun was still an hour from setting. Instead of taking the subway back to Brooklyn to find food, Darcy coaxed him into the diner.

They sat at a booth in the back. He'd let her pick, and she'd immediately gone to a spot where he could sit with his back against the wall and his gaze toward the entrance. Instead of sitting across from him, she slipped into the padded bench seat next to him, so close their thighs were pressed together. He didn't seem to mind all that much because he slipped his right arm over the back of the seat behind her. She could feel the warmth he was throwing off as it radiated through her shirt.

His fingertips brushed over the bare skin of her upper arm while she ordered a burger and fries with a coke. Bucky asked for the same, and turned to her after the waitress left. “I feel like I’m stealing all your free time,” he said.

Darcy picked a piece of lint off the left shoulder of his shirt. “I like it. Don’t feel bad.” She was aware they probably looked like a couple to the other people in the restaurant. His head was tilted down so he could keep his voice low and just for her. His arm was around her, and she was smoothing out his shirt where the metal met his skin underneath.

“You keep saying these things and I might get the idea you like _me_ ,” he murmured. When he made his voice all soft and leaned close enough she could feel the warmth of his breath on her skin, she felt like she needed to cross her legs and squeeze her thighs together to get some relief. She felt like maybe what she thought was him practicing talking to people or flirting with women was more than just practice. That maybe he was trying to actually get into her pants. Except every time they were alone and he touched her, he always kept his hands in respectable places and never even attempted to kiss her.

“I _do_ like you. What’s not to like?”

He licked his lips, and Darcy was sure she’d have to go home and change her panties. “Doll, there is so much for you not to like.”

“Like what?”

“This.” He lifted up his covered metal arm.

“Kinda sexy,” she shot back.

His laugh was just a sharp exhalation of air before he said, “My past.”

Darcy shrugged. “Not your present and not your fault. Also, kinda sexy. I saw that video of you on the freeway back when you were assassin extraordinaire. That level of competence gets me so hot.”

“Doll, I failed that mission.”

“All in the perspective, buddy. You failed according to HYDRA, but you escaped, so that’s a win in my book.”

“Okay,” he said, “but I’ve got all these mental issues. Insomnia, PTSD, aversion to touch....”

Darcy smiled. “Aversion to touch?”

He smiled back. “Maybe not with you.”

“I like you, so you’re just gonna have to deal with that, Barnes,” she told him.

“I’ll try to keep going on, living with the knowledge that a beautiful dame likes me,” he replied.

“Beautiful, huh? You buttering me up for some big favor?”

“Nah, just stating the obvious.”

When he laid it on thick like this, she always got a little flustered and hot under the collar. He was gorgeous and surprisingly sweet, and that made her heart pound a little harder and her mind have to work a little more to keep up. “You’re gonna make me blush,” she whispered, tapping his chest with her index finger.

His left hand lifted, and he used it to press hers flat against his chest. “Bet you get told how beautiful you are all the time,” he murmured softly to her, his voice so low no one else could hear.

“Surprisingly, no, I don’t. Guys just aren’t as smooth as you.”

“Well, I’m glad I’m here to make up for the oversight.” His head was bent down so his lips were close to her cheek, and he was watching her through his eyelashes.

Darcy swallowed hard and said, “If you’re trying to sweet talk your way into my bed, there’s no need. You already have that standing invitation.”

“I thought that was a cuddle-only invitation. I was going for another kind.”

“It was a whatever-you-wanna-do invitation.”

He parted his lips to say something, but the waitress picked that moment to slide their meals across the table.

Darcy cleared her throat and thanked the waitress even though she was pretty devastated that she wouldn’t get to hear whatever Bucky was going to say to her come-on.

They ate in slightly uncomfortable silence. Or it was slightly uncomfortable to Darcy because her body was thrumming with tension over the way he whispered those words and the proximity of his body. He was good at hiding his emotions most of the time, so he looked like he was just enjoying the burger and coke.

When she tried to pay, he swiped the check away and laid down more than enough cash to cover their dinner before offering her his right hand. She slipped hers into it and let him pull her to her feet. He didn’t let go on their walk to the station or on their ride back to Brooklyn, but he did lace their fingers together like they were an actual couple walking home after dinner. Like this was more than just a strange friendship. It made her stomach feel warm and her heart skip a beat now and then, especially when he looked at her.

They were three blocks from her apartment when he said, “Thank you for helping me with the timeline. I couldn’t do it on my own.”

“Sure, you could. You know how to use a computer.”

He shook his head. “No, mentally. I’ve wanted to do it for a very long time. I wrote down everything in journals, but it wasn’t until you said you’d help me that I made that list of everyone for you. I couldn’t do it without you.”

“Oh. ” She bumped her shoulder into his arm. “I want to do anything I can to help you. You don’t have to thank me.”

He was silent for a moment and then said, “After the operation, they kept me in a cell for... I don’t know. Weeks? Months? They gave me drugs and made me perform tasks–menial ones–just to see if I would follow orders. If I didn’t, they would beat me, shock me. They would put me in the chair and erase everything and start again.”

She didn’t say anything because even though he’d paused, she knew he wasn’t done.

Bucky swallowed. “They asked me to shoot a kid. He was… couldn’t have been more than twelve. Don’t know how long this was into my time there, but I turned the gun on myself and they beat me until I was almost dead. I… remember lying on the concrete floor and watching my blood trickle across the floor. But I healed fast and they wiped me. The wipes worked at the time, but I remember them now. It’s just all jumbled.”

She squeezed his hand in hers.

He cleared his throat and continued by saying, “I did kill the kid, though. I don’t know how long it took, maybe a week or maybe a year, but I did. That’s when they put me in cryo and started bringing me out for missions. I don’t even remember knowing who I was back then. It was like… like I didn’t even exist.”

“I’m sorry, Bucky,” she whispered. They were standing at the steps to her building, and he looked gutted. “Come on,” she said, tugging his hand. “Come upstairs with me. We can talk inside.”

“No, I gotta get back. I just wanted to tell you about the kid because I don’t see how I could go against orders on that Klein mission. I was gone. I wasn’t there. I killed a fuckin’ kid just because they told me to, and then I killed others. At least three before they sent me for Klein. I never questioned. I…”

She let go of his hands and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Hey, it’s okay,” she whispered when he hugged her back. “Come upstairs with me. Crash here for the night.”

Bucky kissed the top of her head. “I told Steve I’d be back after dinner. He’d get the wrong idea if I stayed the night with you.”

“Who cares what he thinks? Do you?”

“Nah, not about that. I just… I don’t want this to be… I don’t want us to be…”

She understood what he was saying even if he couldn’t say it. He didn’t want the extent of their friendship to be public. It hurt a little, but she tried to remember that he had an issue with compartmentalizing his life. He’d admitted it himself. He wanted her separate than everything else and the more she creeped into his day-to-day, the more blurred the lines became.

“It’s okay,” she said, “I get it.” She let go of him and looked up into his face. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Definitely,” he said, his eyes unreadable in the low light.

Darcy walked up the first two steps and turned to give him a wave. He stood there on the sidewalk and watched her until she was inside the door.

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He greeted her with, “Good morning, Darcy,” when she walked into the gym at six that morning, but he didn’t say anything else. Compartmentalizing, she reminded herself. He doesn’t mean anything by it. He and Steve spoke in low whispers as she powered through a program on the bike that simulated a mostly uphill ride. Darcy turned up the volume on her music so she wouldn’t be tempted to listen to them. After forty-five minutes of sweating her ass off, she gave herself a five minute cooldown and bid them both a good day before heading off to the locker room.

It only took her twenty-five minutes to shower and dry her hair. She pulled on a stretchy A-line skirt she’d found in a thrift shop a couple months before and a white blouse that probably let her lime green bra bleed through. Who cared, though? Jane certainly didn’t. Her phone was blinking like she had a message when she stepped up to the vanity to put lotion on her face and maybe swipe on some lip gloss.

**Bucky: Text me when you’re decent**

Seeing his name gave her such a thrill. She smiled and sent him a message.

**Darcy: I’m never decent, but I’m dressed if that’s what you’re asking**

He pushed open the door of the locker room less than sixty seconds later. “I’m sorry about last night,” he said, lingering by the door.

“What? Why are you sorry? I had a good time.”

“About unloading that on you–what happened to me in the beginning with HYDRA.”

She scoffed. “Bucky, I don’t mind you telling me if it helps you.”

“You ain’t my shrink or anything, though.”

“So what? I’m your friend.”

He walked up to her. “I feel a little more than friendly toward you if I’m bein’ honest.”

Darcy grinned. “Oh, yeah? How much more? On a scale of one to ten, one being you could take or leave me.”

“And what’s ten?”

“You wanna get me–and only me–naked on a regular basis.”

“Eleven,” he said, not skipping a beat.

Darcy laughed and happily slipped her arms over his shoulders as he bent his knees and wrapped his around her waist. “Did you come in here to get your hugs for the day?”

“Mmmhmm.” His answer was just a rumbled in his throat. He lifted her up and pressed her into his body until she was barely standing on her tip-toes.

“I’m gonna miss these hugs when you’re all better and don’t need ‘em to sleep,” she said, her lips brushing against the lobe of his ear.

“You tryin’ to get rid of me, doll?”

“Never.”

He shifted against her, pulling his hips back, but not before she felt the firm press his unmistakable erection. Her libido went from warming up to red hot in one second flat. He sat her down and stepped back. Darcy considered pushing him to make a move by holding onto his shoulders, but she didn’t want him to be uncomfortable.

Bucky cleared his throat and said, “You do know I can see your, uh, bra through the shirt, right?”

She looked down at herself and then back up at him before cupping her breasts in her hands and pushing them up and together. She leaned forward, letting the shirt drape open to flash him a generous amount of cleavage. “Can you, really?” she asked, batting her lashes at him.

“Doll,” he warned, jerking his eyes away from her before he took a second look. “You’re not playing fair.”

“Neither are you, telling me I’m an eleven out of ten, and then telling me you don’t wanna take advantage of the open invitation to my bed. Tease.”

“I’m trying to be a gentleman,” he said slowly, as if explaining this to a child.

Darcy scoffed. “You already are. Now you’re creeping into all-talk-and-no-action territory. But if you’re shy and just wanna cuddle, then I’m willing.”

“Doll, I am _not_ shy.”

She smiled. “Okay, whatever you say. You want another hug? I promise I’ll keep my dirty hands in only appropriate, ladylike places. Don’t want to upset your sense of decency.”

“Darcy,” he warned.

“Just a little quick hug with a totally platonic pat on the back,” she teased.

He took two swift steps over to her and reached down to grab her ass with both hands. Darcy hadn’t actually expected him to act on her prodding and poking, so his sudden movement made her gasp. She knew he was strong, but not that strong. He lifted her up like she weighed nothing, one big hand on each of her ass cheeks. Her legs spread, and she wrapped them around his waist on instinct alone, her hands clutching at his shoulders.

“What the fuck, Bucky?” she asked breathlessly, looking down slightly at his upturned face.

“How’s this for a hug?” he asked, his pupils blown wide. He sounded just a little aggressive. Maybe her teasing had actually gotten under his skin.

Darcy opened and closed her mouth multiple times, unable to find words for many reasons One of those reasons was the very real hardness pressed snugly against the crotch of her panties. The other reasons involved his fingertips digging into the flesh of her ass and the way he smelled so good she wanted to roll all over him. “Don't think this qualifies as a hug,” she said, “but I like it a lot.”

Bucky's laugh was soft and just a little nervous. “You're doing wonders for my self esteem, doll.”

“Same, Sarge. Same. If I am in anyway responsible for what's happening in your pants right now then I'm feeling pretty fucking good about myself.”

He licked his lips, and she wondered if she was wet enough to drench the front of his sweats. “You're solely responsible for what's happening in my pants,” he said.

“All my fault?” she asked with a grin.

He flexed his hands on her ass and tilted his hips up slightly. “All your fault,” he agreed. “What are you gonna do about it?”

“Well, if you aren't aren't gonna do me up against the wall, then you better put me down so I can show you how good I can s--”

A door banged open and Steve's voice could be heard through the wall. The interruption made her offer to give him the blow job of his life die on her tongue.

“Buck? I gotta run. Sharon locked herself out of… Hey, Buck?” Steve was in the locker room next door looking for his friend.

“Fuck,” Bucky muttered, letting Darcy slide down to stand on shaky legs. “Raincheck,” he told her.

She was too pumped up with hormones and filthy fantasies of him buried inside her to comprehend what was happening until he brushed his lips over her forehead and rushed out the door.

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She was eating the last cookie in the package she’d bought at the little convenience store by her building when her phone beeped. If she couldn't have sex, then she'd damn well have sugar and plenty of it.

After that little situation with Bucky in the locker room, she'd been feeling off all day. Flashbacks of his hands gripping her ass and his impressive dick pressed against her panties had been cycling through her head more often than not. Jane, who had eyes only for science and Thor, had even noticed Darcy’s preoccupation that afternoon.

Not knowing what to do after a guy very nearly has fully-clothed sex with you in the locker room, Darcy decided to just keep on living her life and wait to see how things played out. Bucky hadn't called or texted or dropped by. She'd expected something, not this wall of silence.

Except, she had a text now and it looked like it was from her very own super soldier.

**Bucky: Sorry about this morning. I was out of line**

She rolled her eyes. One step forward and two steps back, it seemed.

**Darcy: Not accepting your apology. Nothing to apologize for other than leaving me with a case of blue balls**

**Bucky: What is that?**

**Darcy: Got me all hot and bothered but didn't finish me off**

**Bucky: Ah. Same here. Blame Steve**

**Darcy: I blame you for not telling him scoot so we could finish what we started.**

**Darcy: Unless you didn't want to finish**

His response was immediate.

**Bucky: I did**

**Bucky: I do. But I shouldn't be treating you that way**

**Darcy: Treat me that way. Please**

**Bucky: Can I call you?**

**Darcy: Anytime**

She forced herself to put her phone on the coffee table, but she sat there watching for the screen to light up with a call or the LED on the top to blink blue. It was the screen that illuminated a few seconds later. She let it ring twice before answering with, “Hey, you.”

“Hey, doll,” he said in a soft voice.

“Aren’t you afraid Steve will find out you’re talking to me?” she asked. It was a low blow, and she knew it. She knew damn well that he had issues and this was one of them. It just bothered her when she started feeling like his secret, like they had to hide in the women’s locker room so they could have a minute together.

“No,” Bucky said. “I’m not afraid.”

“He’s gone?”

“No, he’s here. Watching the Mets game on TV.” He paused and said, “I ain’t worried he knows I talk to you, Darcy. I just… don’t want… I don’t want... I feel like when I’m with you it’s the way I want to be. And then real life comes in and fucks it up. Like yesterday with the research or Steve interrupting us this morning.”

“Girl could kinda get the feeling that you’re ashamed of her,” Darcy said, holding her breath for his response.

He laughed softly. “Oh, it ain’t that. I don’t deserve you. You looked in a mirror lately, doll? You’re gorgeous.”

“Just making sure you know how awesome I am,” she said, trying to keep her tone easy-breezy like she didn’t really care if he’d just called her gorgeous. She did care, though.

“Doll, believe me when I say I know.”

“So… about this morning….” she said, smiling.

He groaned. “I was out of line.”

“Not really. I goaded you into it. I’ll take some of that blame.”

He was silent for a moment, the steady inhale and exhale of his breath was the only thing she could hear, like he was holding the phone so close to his mouth. “What we found out yesterday about Volker Klein–what I remember… I haven’t been able to sleep.”

“I’m sorry,” she told him. “Maybe I should have left well enough alone and let that secret stay buried.”

“No, doll. No. I wanted to know. I _need_ to know.”

“You did a good thing, Bucky. I know he was working for the Americans when you killed him, but he was a bad guy. He was trying to control people’s minds, and if you would have followed orders and brought him back to HYDRA… then it would have been a disaster. We wouldn’t be here today.”

He sighed. “I know. Honestly, Klein isn’t what’s fucking with my head. It’s the kid. The kid they had me shoot before any of the missions, the one they told me to shoot just to see if I’d follow instructions. I shot that kid. I followed those orders. I followed all the other orders between him and Klein. Never failed a mission. And then I failed on Klein? I go off script and kill him to keep him from HYDRA?”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Yeah, you probably did.”

“But that means I was there somewhere inside my body. I was there. If it was me who killed Klein instead of bringing him in, then it was me who killed that kid. It was _me_. What if I just did it to stop the torture?” His voice was so soft, almost a whisper. She could hear the pain in every word.

“I don’t think you should think of it like that, Bucky. It’s not so black and white, you know? I’m no expert, but just because you broke through once doesn’t mean you were always able to. There are so many other factors, right? How long you’d been with HYDRA, the conditions you were living in, the person giving the orders, the length you had to travel to complete the mission. All that matters; it has to.” She paused and then said, “Look maybe you should talk to Sam about this. He probably knows more about it, and I’m going to bet you dinner he tells you that you didn’t choose to kill that kid. HYDRA killed that kid. The man who gave you the order did that.”

Bucky was quiet for several seconds before he said, “So, where I am buying you dinner when you’re right?”

She smiled into the mouthpiece of her phone. “Some place real classy where you have to have reservations and can’t wear jeans.”

“Mmm, sounds like a date,” he said.

“Well, you _would_ be paying. And I would probably be wearing a cute dress with my good panties. So, yeah, does sound kinda date-like.”

“What’s your good panties?”

“Play your cards right and you might find out.”

He chuckled. “I have a session in two days. I’ll ask him then. You wanna go out on Friday night?”

“On a date?”

“Yeah. With me. I’ll even tuck my shirt in and bring you flowers.”

She laughed under her breath. “Yeah, I’d love to.”

“You working tomorrow?”

“Yep.”

He sighed. “I won’t see you at the gym. We have a training exercise that morning with Fury’s elite squad. Can I see you after you finish work?”

“You wanna try the library again, maybe pick up where we left off on two thousand four?” Darcy rushed to add, “We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“No, I want to. Like I said, I need to know. Pick you up at the lab?”

“Yep. Around four.”

“Done. Goodnight, doll.”

“Night,” she told him. The smile stayed on her face until she fell asleep on the couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quote at the beginning of the chapter comes from a song by DVSN called With Me. I listened to it on repeat while writing a large portion of this fic. I imagine you'll like the song more if you're a fan of R&B/soul like I am, but it's still wonderful regardless. Sexy and smooth with just that little bit of confident and edgy swagger. You can hear it [right here on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwDVKqAYbEw) if you're interested in a song rec.


	7. Chapter 7

> _”Tell me that it’s all mine. We can do this baby, all night.” - All Mine (Jacob Banks)_

Darcy didn't know how he did it. After all that talk about their mutual attraction, she was a mess when she met him for their trip to the library the next day. All she could think about was the way his body felt when it brushed against hers or the placement of his hand on her back and what that light touch meant. She wanted to know what he was thinking and if he was going to make a move, but he was unreadable, only giving her a friendly smile and asking about her day as they took the subway.

She was sitting in front of a computer terminal, flipping through Phoenix newspapers from August of two thousand four. The library computers had a free subscription to a website that allowed users to search most city papers. It was a little difficult to concentrate with Bucky sitting so close, though. He was in a chair facing hers with his legs spread wide. One leg was behind her chair and the other along the side of her leg with his knee pressing lightly into her thigh. His left arm was resting on the back of her chair and his right forearm was pressed into the desk next to where her hand controlled the mouse. Any closer and he would be sitting in her lap. Again, not that she was complaining, but the man was kickstarting all sorts of hormones in her body.

“Maybe the C.I.A. kept it all hush-hush and out of the papers,” she told him after coming up empty on a search again. There were no articles, not even blurbs in the crime blotter, about a man being mysteriously murdered in any hotel, much less a Red Roof Inn, in the greater Phoenix metro area.

“It’s okay, doll,” Bucky said. “I appreciate you looking for me. Maybe we’ll have more luck with one of the others.” The list of assassinations was laid on the table underneath his arm. “Next time?”

Darcy leaned back into the chair and lifted her arms to stretch her body. Sitting in front of the computer for over an hour made her back feel stiff. “I just don’t know why there’s no trace of it. It’s not like it happened in the fifties. I mean, it was just a few years ago. How can someone die and there be no trace?”

She felt his hand that was resting on the back of her chair curl around her side as she leaned into the stretch. His fingertips grazed over the fabric of her T-shirt and traced the band of her bra. The little not-so-innocent touches were wearing on her nerves because she wasn’t even sure if they were going anywhere. A girl could only take so much teasing before she needed some action.

“We’ll come back to it,” he told her, his mouth entirely too close to her ear. The feel of his breath and the way his fingers stroked over the band of her bra made her shiver.

“What about just searching for deaths at hotels in August?” she said, bringing her fingers back to the keyboard. He moved his hand back to the chair for a moment before running what felt like his thumb down her spine right in the center of her back. She swallowed and added, “I mean, how many could there be?”

As it turned out, there were a lot, most of them overdoses. By the time they scrolled down to August twenty-third they’d only found two shootings, both of which were over drug deals gone wrong. Phoenix had a real drug problem, Darcy decided.

Her finger faltered on the wheel of the mouse when she saw a blurb in the crime blotter about an accidental death in a hotel near the location they’d identified as the site of the assassination. She expanded the short three sentence blurb.

_Theodore Lewis, 67, of Rochester, New York was found dead by an hotel employee in his room the morning of August 22nd. The coroner ruled the death accidental. Lewis slipped in the shower and died of trauma to the head._

“Oh my, god,” Darcy whispered, reading the three lines again. “That’s my grandpa.”

“What?” Bucky asked, leaning closer.

“My grandpa. I… I mean, I knew he died in Phoenix when I was fourteen, but… it's weird to see it written out like that. He fell and hit his head on the edge of the bathtub while he was showering.”

Bucky shifted. “He wasn’t C.I.A., was he?”

Darcy laughed softly. “No way. He was an electrician. He was there helping his aunt. She broke her leg and didn’t have any family to take care of her.” She closed the browser window. “It just threw me off. It’s been awhile since I thought of him.”

“You don’t think…”

She scoffed at Bucky’s unasked question. “No, I don’t think. He wasn't C.I.A., and his death was ruled an accident. He was _not_ your two thousand four, trust me.” She leaned over and laid her head on his shoulder. “Wanna get some dinner?”

“Sure,” he murmured, running those metal fingertips around her shoulder blades. “What were you thinking?”

“Takeout in my apartment?”

“You tryin’ to get me alone?” he asked in a low voice.

“Maybe,” Darcy replied, lifting her head up to look at him. “But I owe you snuggles, and that might be more appropriate on my couch than in a restaurant. I mean, we gotta keep some of our dignity, right?”

His lips twitched. “Right.”

She rolled her neck to the left and the right, trying to stretch the tension out of it. His left hand slipped up underneath her hair to gently squeeze the muscles right there where her neck sloped out into her shoulder. His metal prosthetic was deceptively gentle when he wanted it to be. Darcy sighed and leaned into his touch. “That feels so good. Stop it.”

He chuckled, but kept working her tense muscles. “You really want me to stop?”

“Fuck no. I just felt like I should say it because we’re in a library, and what you're doing makes me want to jump your bones.”

“Does that mean you want to beat me up?”

She looked over at him. “You’re cute. You might not know the phrase, but you’re smart enough to know I don’t want to beat you up. Use your powers of logic with the context.”

His eyes were dark, and he looked like he wanted to eat her alive, but in a really good way. In a way she would fucking _love_. “The context leads me to believe that jumping my bones involves us in a bed,” he told her.

“Well, doesn't have to be a bed. I'm a pretty adventurous girl, you know.”

“But not so adventurous that a library would be an appropriate setting?”

“Maybe one day when I'm feeling especially exhibitionistic,” she told him as she stood up and stretched her arms above her head. Bucky made her gasp when he quickly stood up and wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her until her eyes were almost level with his and her toes were just barely touching the floor. “Getting pretty handsy there, Sarge. You sure you can handle me?”

He gave her little squeeze before letting go and saying, “I’m pretty sure I can't handle you, but I'm trying anyway.”

“Let me assure you that you're hitting all the right spots,” she said. “How do you feel about Mexican for dinner?”

“Whatever you want, doll.”

///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\

He had eaten her leftovers, and they'd not bothered to clear their empty containers off the coffee table. Bucky had kicked his feet up onto the edge of it, pushing the trash aside. Darcy was up underneath his right arm with her own arm wrapped across his torso. She could feel the steady rise and fall of his chest with each breath.

The television was on and the volume was low enough she could only hear part of the dialogue from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It was one of those rare moments where his body was completely relaxed, and she felt privileged that he was comfortable enough with her to let go like this. It was a leap from where he’d been when they’d had that awkward first hug in the gym weeks ago.

“You seem pretty chill right now,” she told him, not taking her eyes off the television.

“I like being here with you. It feels good. Safe.”

“I think you might be safer in the Avengers building. I don’t have security or even a doorman. ”

“Not that kind of safe. Not physical.” He paused before saying, “It's almost nine. I'm overstaying my welcome.”

She closed her eyes as his flesh fingertips trailed down her arm. “Not a chance,” Darcy told him. “You can stay the night, and you know it.”

“Gotta get up early for the morning workout,” Bucky murmured.

“You don’t even need to workout. I bet you just go to show off and impress me with your gazillion perfect sit-ups.”

“Oh, yeah? Does that impress you?”

“Not to inflate that ego of yours any more than necessary, but pretty much everything you do impresses me.”

“You do stare at me pretty hard when I do my squats.”

“I got a thing for your thighs.”

“You should let me to help you strength train.”

She snorted. “Fuck no. Then I won't get to stand back and watch you.”

“Mmm, but I'd get to watch you,” he whispered in her ear. “I bet your ass looks better than mine.”

She turned her face into his chest when a blush spread across her cheeks. “You've obviously not seen your butt,” Darcy said. “It's world class.”

“I feel so objectified,” he said. “I'm so much more than my ass.”

“Yeah, you got all this going on,” she agreed, sliding her palm up to run across his chest and then down to his stomach and abdomen. She stopped when her fingertips hit the waist of his pants. Bucky was holding his breath. After she'd stopped the descent of her hand, he inhaled and gave a slow, steady exhale.

When she looked down, she could see the outline of his erection along the right leg of his jeans. The little devil on her shoulder told her to reach out and put her hand over it. If that didn't get her laid, she didn't know what would. They were going at his pace, though, and she still didn’t really know if sex was his intention or if he was enjoying just flirting.

“Do you want to try the library again tomorrow?” she asked, removing her hand from his body.

“Yeah.” He laughed under his breath and said, “I was sitting here trying to figure out a way to see you tomorrow.”

“These little snuggle sessions working for your insomnia?”

“Yeah, but… I wasn’t just looking for that.”

“More than snuggling? Sergeant Barnes, what did you have in mind?”

He chuckled. “I want to see you for more reasons than my ability to sleep.”

Darcy pulled back and pushed her lower lip out in a pout. “Tease. I thought you were going to put those smooth moves on me,” she teased. “You were just being sweet.”

“What smooth moves are you talkin’ about?” he asked. She felt his right hand slide up to cradle the base of her skull. It made her swallow hard and jerk her gaze back up to meet his. His pupils were wide and his lips are parted.

“You look like you’re thinking about doing something,” Darcy whispered.

“I am.”

“Do it,” she urged.

He tilted his head and leaned in to brush his lips over hers. She felt her stomach drop into her feet at the gentle pressure and his warm breath. “Is this okay?” he whispered, his bottom lip catching on hers.

“Fuck yes. Proceed, Sarge.”

He laughed and used the hand on the back of her head to kiss her properly. She parted her lips, and he moaned before licking into her mouth tentatively. She kissed him back, running the tip of her tongue over his lower lip. When they both pulled back to catch their breaths, he moved his hands to her shoulders, keeping her away. If he hadn’t, she would have been in his lap and trying to pull his shirt off. She’d never been that great at impulse control.

“That…”

“Was something we should be doing more often,” she said, completing his unfinished thought.

Bucky looked lost, his eyes wide and his lips wet with their mingled saliva. “Yeah,” he finally agreed. “Can I have another for the road?”

Darcy raised her brows. “Road? I thought I might be able to entice you into staying.”

“One night, but not tonight.” He glanced down at his lap and then back up at her. “I wanna take you out first. I want to…”

“Take me out?”

“A date. I want to do this right. I’m just a little rusty.”

Darcy heart was working overtime because what guy had ever even thought to turn down sex? Not anyone she’d ever gone out with. Did he think she would feel hurt if they flipped the script? “That’s not important to me. Plus, we’ve gone on at least three not-a-dates. Those definitely count.” she told him.

He smiled. “Raincheck. We got a date on Friday, right?”

“Are you telling me that you insist on taking me out on an official date before you’ll unzip your pants?”

“Unzip my pants? I thought I’d take ‘em off.”

“I’m on board with that, but technically all it would take is for you to unzip them. That would give me access.”

He dropped his gaze like he was almost embarrassed. “Jesus, I gotta run to keep up with you, doll. Yes, I’m saying I gotta take you out first. I know I used to have a reputation, but I always showed a girl a good time before I…”

Darcy poked him in the chest. “What?” she asked. “You had to show her a good time before you showed her a better time?”

This time he gave her a breathy laugh. “Exactly.” Bucky let go of her shoulders and stood up. He reached down, took her hand to pull her up beside him, and wrapped her up in a hug. She didn’t miss that he angled his hips to the side so she could feel his thigh, but not what he was packing. Such a fucking gentleman. It was a real shame.

“Fine. I guess I can wait a few more days.”

“I promise that I’ll make it worth your while,” he told her, his lips brushing over her hair.

“You better. You’ve been revving my motor for a while now.”

“I’ll pull out all my old tricks.”

Darcy snorted into his shirt. “Oh, yeah? What did they do back in the olden days, grandpa? Are you gonna kiss my hand and read me a poem?”

His left hand drifted down to grab her ass. “Don’t test me, doll. I promise I know what I’m doing. Might just take me a minute to warm up.”

“I don’t know,” she said, running her fingernails over his scalp and down his neck. “You seemed pretty warm just now.”

He shivered at her touch. “I’ll see you tomorrow. We’ll do squats together.”

Darcy let go of him and watched him reluctantly back away from her like he didn’t really want to leave. “Nope. But I’ll watch you do them.”

“We’ll see,” he threatened.

After she had closed the door and washed her face to try to cool the flush burning her cheeks, she settled down on the couch to stare at their empty take-out containers and think of their plans for the next day.

She hadn’t really paid much attention until just then, but she was falling hard and fast for him. He seemed to be into her as well, though he was a bit difficult to read. One moment he was throwing out those sexual innuendos, and the next he was pushing her away and trying to be a gentleman. Most men took what they could get. If she even so much as looked at them like she was down for something more than polite conversation, they were on her like white on rice. Bucky was a little more difficult in that respect, but in others he was easy and such a pleasure to be around.

After sitting there and daydreaming about him for a few minutes, she got up and cleaned the mess on the coffee table. While she did this, Darcy tried to decide on a strategy for their library trip tomorrow. It felt like they'd hit a dead end with the assassination in two thousand four, and she couldn't see any way around calling it quits on that one for the moment. Maybe they could come back to it later.

Thinking about the investigation brought her thoughts back around to the blurb in the crime section about her grandfather. She'd been grandpa's little girl, and losing him when she was fourteen had hurt more than her teenage self had ever really admitted. Even today when she went to the movies, she pretended he was there sitting beside her with a jumbo box of Hot Tamales to share. She credited him with her love of movies and sugary snacks.

Darcy picked up her cellphone and fell back onto the couch. Her parents were separated, but her dad still lived in her hometown in upstate New York. Not even giving a thought to the time, she dialed his number.

“Hey, Darcy-girl. What's shaking?”

She smiled. “Hey, dad. How was work?”

“Oh, you know. Crunching numbers and saving the world. Diane says hello.”

Darcy tried to be progressive and be okay with her parents dating other people, but when her dad talked about his girlfriend she always felt awkward. “Yeah, tell her I said hi back.”

“What do I owe the pleasure, pumpkin? Something on your mind?”

“Just thinking about Pop.”

“Yeah?” her dad asked. “What brought that on?”

“I was doing some research in the library and came across the blurb in the Phoenix paper about his accident.”

The line was silent for several seconds before he said, “You never really talked to us much back when Pop died.”

“Yeah, I… I don't know, Dad.”

“You were pretty mad.”

She laughed, but there was no humor or lightness in it. “I was. I didn't think it was fair. How do you die from slipping in the shower, you know? It's just so… stupid.”

“I know, Darcy-girl. I know. It bothered me, too. It does seem unfair.”

“If Gram would have gone with him, then… Maybe he’d still be alive. Why didn’t she go with him?”

“You know Gram hates traveling. Besides, he was going to be out there for three weeks helping Aunt Ellen. Gram’s a homebody.”

Darcy sighed and leaned her head back. “It just seems so dumb. Like, slipping in the shower? How undignified. What a way to go.”

Her dad cleared his throat and sighed.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing, Darce,” he said.

“No,” she replied. “What was that about? What are you not saying?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

“Dad, did you lie to me about how Pop died?”

“No! Darcy, no. Of course not. I just… your mom and I thought it would be best if we didn’t tell you everything.”

Darcy felt her stomach sour. “Like what?”

“Well, when I flew out to bring Pop’s body back I asked for a copy of the police report.”

Darcy felt her heart twist a little. “Why? Why would you wanna read that?”

“What they told us… It bothered me a lot. I was angry too.”

“Yeah, but what can the dumb report help?”

“Darcy, the report had some weird things in it.”

She felt immediately nauseous, like that feeling you get when your phone rings at two in the morning. Her mind flashed to Bucky and his list of assassinations. “What kind of things?”

“He was fully clothed and the shower was off.”

“Umm, okay. So, he slipped when he was getting ready to shower.”

“His bag and all his money were gone. Gram said he had over a thousand dollars on him when he flew out to Phoenix. We never found any of it.”

“So, what are you saying?” Darcy asked.

“I think it was a robbery gone wrong. Someone followed him back to his hotel room and killed him for the money.”

“Why wouldn't the police say that? Why would the coroner rule it an accident?”

He sighed again. “I don't know, pumpkin. I talked to the detective in charge, and he told me it was an accident. I just never really believed him.”

She felt like throwing up. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“You were a kid, pumpkin. You were angry about it. You told me you weren't even going to Pop’s funeral. Your mom had to drag you to it. I thought it would just make you angrier, and there was nothing you could do.”

“What hotel?” she asked.

“What?”

“The hotel he was staying at. Which one?”

“Why does it matter, Darcy?”

“It just does. Do you remember?”

“Uh, it was a Red Roof Inn in the southern part of the city.”

Darcy shifted uncomfortably on the couch and said, “Was he shot?” There was no way. No way her Pop had been killed by the man she was falling for.

“What? No, Darcy. He had a gash on the back of his head from where he fell. I think they followed him to his room and pushed him into the bathroom. Pop fell and hit his head, they took the money and his bag and left him for dead. Why would you ask that?”

She shook her head. “No reason. Nothing. Just being stupid.”

Bucky's notes said he broke the man's arm and shot him in the back of the head. Her dad hadn't said anything about the broken arm or the headshot. So, not Bucky. Just coincidence.

“Thanks, Dad. I gotta go.”

“Darcy, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. Just… thinking about Pop. You know?”

“When you coming home for a visit? Gram has been asking about you on her good days.”

“Later this summer when I can get a few days off. Tell her I love her.”

“Will do, pumpkin. You take care of yourself, yeah?”

“Sure, Dad. You, too. Night.”

After he wished her a goodnight, she hung up and sat on the couch, staring at the television but not hearing anything until her phone beeped. It was a text message from Bucky, the other man on her mind.

**Bucky: Wish I would have stayed the night**

She stared at the words for a long moment before she registered what he was saying.

**Darcy: Is Steve snoring and keeping you up?**

**Bucky: No. Wish I could fall asleep with your hands in my hair like that night**

She felt strange. Half of her brain was thinking of her grandfather and the bombshell her Dad had just dropped on her. A little irrational piece of her wondered if he was Bucky's two thousand four. Same city, same location, same time of year. The facts didn't match up, though. It had to be coincidence. The other half of her brain was swooning over Bucky and his words. It all added up to Darcy feeling emotionally raw.

Instead of texting him back, she dialed his number. He picked up on the first ring like he'd been holding his phone and waiting for her answer.

“Hey,” he said softly.

“I thought you hated texting.”

“Never had anyone I wanted to text.”

Darcy smiled. “Very smooth, Sarge.”

“You bring it outta me, doll.”

“You don't happen to be outside my door tonight like after your mission, do you?”

“Mmm, I wish I was. I regret leaving.”

“Why did you?”

He laughed, but it just sounded nervous. “I wanted everything to be right for you. I didn't want to… after eating tacos on your couch, like it wasn't anything special. That ain't no way to treat you.”

“And leaving when you know what I want is?”

He was quiet for several seconds before saying, “It's been awhile for me. I ain't… since…”

“Oh. I'm sorry, Bucky. I… I’m not pushing you. If you don't want me like that…”

“I do,” he interjected.

“Sometimes I thought we were just playing, that you were practicing with me.”

“You ain't practice, doll. I told you that weeks ago.” He paused and then said, “Let's skip the library tomorrow. Let me take you out to dinner. I'll make reservations and pick you up. And maybe you'll invite me up for coffee after, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Bring your toothbrush because I'm not letting you go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I modified the chapter count on this because I'm currently working on a just-for-fun epilogue-ish chapter that will involve phone sex and Bucky's filthy mouth. I don't anticipate you having to wait for it. I'll have it up the day after I post chapter 9, hopefully.


	8. Chapter 8

> _”I’m addicted to, addicted to your love. It’s a curse and a blessing.” - JMSN (Addicted, Pt II)_

When she walked into the gym that morning, her conversation with her dad the previous night was heavy on her mind. It wasn’t that she thought Bucky had anything to do with it. It was more that she’d believed for so many years that her grandfather had fallen and died in a stupid accident, and now her dad was shaking the belief and questioning whether he was actually killed in a robbery gone wrong.

Those thoughts flew right out of her head when she saw Bucky sitting on the weight bench. He was straddling it, one foot planted on either side. It looked like she’d caught him just as he was sitting up. Darcy ran her eyes over his sweatpant-clad legs and his arms bared by the muscle shirt. His hair was down and tucked neatly behind his ears.

“Hey,” she said, as the door closed behind her. Steve was nowhere to be found.

“Morning, doll.”

“Where’s your shadow?”

“Steve? He’s probably running late. Spent the night at his girl’s place. ”

“How’d you sleep?” she asked, stepping into the room to put her water bottle and phone down on the seat of the stationary bike.

“Good,” he said. His eyes tracked her as she stepped over and dropped her bag on the floor. “We still on for tonight?”

“Definitely,” Darcy said, moving over to stand beside the weight bench.

“Good.” He reached his right hand up and wrapped his flesh fingers around her wrist, giving a gentle tug. “Come here.”

Darcy sat down on the bench and turned to face away from him, straddling the bench as well. He pulled her backward into his body. Her back was pressed into his chest, and his legs bracketed her hips.

His breath tickled the hairs at the base of her neck when he bent down to whisper, “This okay?”

“Mmm, totally okay.”

He wrapped his left arm around her waist and his right around her chest, cutting across just above her breasts. Darcy settled into his body with a sigh of contentment.

After a long moment, she cleared her throat and said, “Remember that blurb we found yesterday? The one I said was about my grandpa.”

“Mmm, hmm,” he hummed into her ear. It gave her goosebumps.

“I talked to my dad last night after you left because I couldn’t stop thinking about it.” When Bucky didn’t respond, she continued. “He says he doesn’t think it was an accident.”

Bucky’s body tightened up. “What do you mean?”

She reached up to stroke a hand over the forearm across her chest. “Well, he thinks it was an accident, but not the way the coroner claims. My grandpa’s money and luggage were taken. My dad thinks it was a robbery gone wrong, that someone pushed him and made him hit his head on the tub.”

“Oh.” Bucky’s body relaxed just a bit. “How do you feel about that?”

Darcy snorted. “I don’t know. Weird? I spent the last thirteen years thinking it was just a stupid accident. I remember being so mad at Pops--that’s what I called him--because he'd slipped and fallen and now we couldn’t see movies together anymore. That was our thing. Movies.”

“What movies?”

“All kinds. And Hot Tamales.”

“What?”

She laughed softly. “Candy. Little red cinnamon candies. We’d eat so many we would get sick when we went to the movies.”

“So, the missing cash makes your dad think it was a robbery?”

“Yeah.” Darcy leaned her head back onto his shoulder. “I don’t know how I feel about that. It’s been bothering me since last night. I think it took place in the same area, maybe the same motel, as your thing.”

“Same time, too?” He was tense again.

“Yeah, but don’t worry. It wasn’t you. Like I said, he was an electrician, and he died from smacking head off a tub, not a gunshot. Wouldn’t that be some shit, though, if it was connected?”

“I don’t think that’s the way I’d put it, doll. It’s nothing to joke about.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry,” she said, squeezing his forearm. “It was just a strange coincidence.” Darcy rolled her eyes back and to the left to see his face while she reclined against him. “So, you regret not staying last night, huh?”

His lips twitched as he fought not to smile at her. “Only a little.”

“Sounds like you’re bullshitting me. Your texts last night told me that you regret it a lot.”

“Hush,” he whispered, bending his head down to brush his lips over her cheek. She used her feet on the floor to push back into him more firmly and lift up. He took advantage and kissed her lips.

Darcy grabbed his right arm as he pulled her tighter. He moved his warm, flesh and blood hand up to her neck and deepened the kiss. For someone who had been reluctant to ask her for a hug a few weeks ago, he was startlingly good at making out. She felt like she was floating as the fingertips of his left hand stroked across her stomach right where her shirt had lifted up. If he slipped it down into her pants, she would probably come on the spot.

“Oh, whoops,” Steve said when he pushed open the door.

Bucky had her up and standing beside the weight bench in one second flat. She wasn’t even sure how they’d ended up on their feet like they hadn’t just been seriously making out a moment before. His left hand was gripping her arm just above the elbow to keep her steady.

“Steve,” she said, nodding at him.

He smiled. “Darcy. How are you this morning?”

“Peachy keen,” she replied, extracting herself from Bucky’s grasp and walking over to the bike.

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**Darcy: Sorry I embarrassed you by sucking your face in front of your bestie**

**Bucky: You are making me work at it with all this slang you use doll. You didn’t embarrass me**

**Bucky: Some things should be private**

**Darcy: Not into PDAs?**

**Bucky: ???**

**Darcy: Public displays of affection**

**Bucky: Not if that means I’m five seconds from sliding my hand down the front of your pants while someone else is in the room. Want you alone for that**

**Darcy: You had me alone the night before, Sarge. You ran**

**Bucky: Momentary lapse of judgement**

**Bucky: Pick you up at your place tonight? 15 til 7?**

**Darcy: My place? Like a real date?**

**Bucky: You said something about your special panties if it’s a date**

**Darcy: The way you got me feeling I might not wear any panties**

**Bucky: Doll**

She sat her phone down on the desk and tried to hide her grin from Jane. It wasn’t hard; Jane was too focused on the computer screen. “Hey, Jane?”

The other woman looked up, her eyes wide. “What?”

“I’m cutting out early today. Gotta shave my legs because I’m pretty sure I’m getting laid big time.”

“Laid big time?” Jane furrowed her brows. “Is that different than getting laid?”

Darcy scoffed. “Fuck, yeah. That means you’re getting laid times ten. Like you’re going to have really mind-blowing sex, hopefully more than once before the night is over.”

“James Barnes?” Jane asked.

“Maybe. You think he has a short refractory period? He is a super soldier after all. I’m wondering if everything is super.”

“Darcy,” Jane reprimanded.

“What?”

“How do you know if he can help you get laid big time? Have you already…”

Darcy rolled eyes. “I haven't, but have you seen him? The way he touches my arm gives me all the goosebumps. I have faith, and I'm pretty sure it is not misplaced.”

“I’m not _that_ kind of doctor, but I’m going to venture to say the refractory period is probably shorter,” Jane finally replied.

Darcy busted out laughing, feeling giddy over her plans for the evening.

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Darcy decided on a black, A-line skirt with white polka dots and a black top with a cowl neckline that showed off her tits when she leaned forward. She went with a black, push-up plunge bra and a matching set of hipster panties with lace on the edges. Little bit classy, little bit ready to flip the skirt up and get down to business.

She noticed the message on her phone as soon as she'd finished applying her smudge-proof and fire engine red lipstick. Expecting it to be from Bucky, she grinned as she pulled up the text.

It wasn't from Bucky. It was from her dad.

Dad: Got me thinking about Pop last night. Found this picture in an old photo album your mom left here. Thought you'd want to see. Love you.

Just below the text was a photo from her thirteenth birthday party. Her newly teenage self was sticking her tongue out at the camera while seated at a dining table next to Pop. He was giving her bunny ears with a hand behind her head.

Darcy sat down hard on the edge of her bed and opened the picture to take a closer look. She remembered the day well. She'd had a fight with her best friend, Sarah, the day before, and Sarah had refused to come to the party. Pop had declared himself her best friend and proceeded to alternately annoy the shit out of her and make her feel like the most important girl in the world. The picture was taken while Darcy was waiting on her Dad to light the candles on her cake.

She blinked back the tears that threatened to spill over her lower eyelids and ruin her perfect eyeliner. She needed that perfect eyeliner if she was going on a date with Bucky Fucking Barnes and his hot body.

She jumped up when someone knocked at the door. Holding her phone, she pulled open the door to reveal Bucky in a black suit. The top two buttons of his white dress shirt were undone, and he'd skipped the tie. He was holding a small bouquet of white and pink variegated tulips.

He looked edible, and it took her a moment to form a sentence. “You know men don't give flowers on a first date anymore, right?”

“This is practically our fourth or fifth date, and men could use a lesson or two on how to treat a lady.”

Darcy took the flowers from him. “Oh, yeah? You gonna teach this class? Tell them all about how to send classy sexts and such?”

“Don't sass me,” he told her, following Darcy over to the little kitchenette where she stuck the flowers in an empty glass pitcher she'd filled with water.

“You love when I get to sass you,” she said, turning around to face him and leaning back against the counter.

“Mmm, I do.” He stepped closer. “You look gorgeous, doll.”

Darcy smiled at him, trying to will away the blush spreading over her fair cheeks. “You don't look half bad yourself there, Sarge.”

She looked down at her phone to check the time and remembered the text from her dad.

“Hold on a second. Let me text my Dad back.”

“I didn't ask his permission to take you out on the town. Am I in trouble?” Bucky teased.

“Only person you gotta worry about being in trouble with is me,” she shot back. The picture filled her phone screen when she unlocked it to type out her response. “He sent me a picture of Pops.”

Bucky stepped over to stand beside her. “This the grandpa who died a few years ago?”

She nodded tilting the phone over to show him. “Yeah. This was taken at my thirteenth birthday party. I was in such a foul mood and he really…” She trailed off when she looked up to Bucky's face. “Bucky, what's wrong?”

“Is that him?” He looked like he'd seen ghost.

Darcy opened her mouth to answer when all the pieces fell into place. “Bucky?” she said when he stumbled back a step. “You recognize him.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Fuck, doll. I'm… I'm so sorry. I… I don't know what to…”

Darcy felt all the effervescent elation she'd been feeling at the prospect of an evening with him just fall away like it had never even been there. “Was it you? Did you kill him?”

The questions shot out of her mouth without thought or care, like stray bullets. They seemed to hit their mark, though. Bucky met her gaze with wild, fearful eyes. “I'm so sorry,” he mumbled before lurching toward the door.

She heard it click closed and the heavy steps of Bucky almost running down the hallway toward the stairs. What just happened? Pop was an electrician. He wasn't Bucky's target.

It took her a full minute to realize her phone was on the floor and the screen had shattered when it had fallen from her hand.

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She hadn't gone to the gym the next day. Darcy told herself that it was because she was exhausted from the emotional rollercoaster and all the tears she’d shed the previous night when Bucky had confirmed he was the reason her grandfather was dead. Really, though, she was just afraid to see him and unsure how to act. Their relationship had always been hot and cold–nothing or more than something–and now it felt pretty chilly.

In fact, she hadn’t spoken to Bucky in a week. At first, she thought he might reach out to her and offer an apology. She waited for a text or a phone call. She waited for him to drop by her place one night and knock on her door. Darcy thought about what she’d do if he did, and she decided she’d forgive him, at least as much as she could. He’d never reached out, though, and she didn’t know how to talk to him anymore. He’d destroyed her world when she was fourteen, and he hadn’t even had a clue.

She’d been avoiding her dad because she didn’t want to slip up and say something crazy like how she’d been kinda-sorta dating the man who had killed Pop. She’d decided it was an accident and Bucky had gotten confused and killed the wrong man, because Pop was an electrician who liked crossword puzzles, action movies, Earl Grey tea, and Hot Tamales. She had grilled her Dad four days ago in a very awkward conversation about who Pop _really_ was. Her Dad probably thought she was losing her mind.

That being said, here she was, in front of her laptop and looking at the C.I.A.’s website. She felt ridiculous as she copied and pasted their suggested Freedom of Information Act template letter into a blank Word document. She pulled in a deep breath before she went into the template to make the necessary changes.

It took over two weeks to get a response. She’d not run into or heard from Bucky at all. Darcy realized that she wouldn’t see him if she didn’t make the first move. He was buried in guilt already, and probably felt bad for killing someone close to her. She tried to tell herself it didn’t bother her, but it did. It bothered her that he’d been the one to take Pop away from her, and it bothered her that he hadn’t called. If he would just call, then she could forgive him. Maybe. She hoped. Because she missed him something fierce.

The envelope that arrived in the mail was thin and only contained two sheets of paper. She opened it, assuming it was a politely worded letter telling her that they had no knowledge of Theodore Lewis. Darcy had to sit down on the floor in front of her apartment door when she saw that wasn’t the case.

The letter offered condolences on the loss of her grandfather thirteen years ago. It also apologized for the inability to offer much information beyond the attached. She flipped to the second sheet of paper and found her grandfather’s name at the top with a timeline.

He began working as a field agent for the C.I.A. in nineteen fifty-seven when he was barely twenty-years-old. He continued working as a field agent until nineteen sixty-eight, which was just after her father was born. They showed him on desk duty in New York until nineteen seventy-two when he retired. Perhaps that was when he picked up what she believed to be his actual profession of electrician.

There was a note at the bottom of the page that said, “Agent Lewis reported for special assignments from nineteen seventy-two until two thousand four.” Special assignments? When? How often? Was that why he was in the Red Roof Inn in Phoenix? She felt sick. He’d been Bucky’s target all along. How could Dad not have known? She knew her Dad well, and he wasn’t lying when he told her that Pop was a retired electrician who had never even been out of the country. How could they have gone their entire lives completely unaware of such a big part of his?

She felt like throwing up. Instead, she pushed herself up and flopped her body onto the couch. She wasn’t going to get anywhere unless she had a friend in the C.I.A. Darcy knew many people since her work with Jane brought her into contact with the Avengers, but government agents were not on that list. She thought about calling Bucky, but she didn’t know what to say to him.

She called her Dad instead, and asked him about coming to visit over the weekend. He told her he’d be out of town with Diane, but the next weekend would be good. After hanging up, she decided that she would go up to Rochester anyway. There was only one person who might be able to give her answers. Unfortunately, her Gram wasn’t in the best mental shape. She had good days and bad days in the nursing facility. On the bad days, she couldn’t remember her own son’s name. Maybe Darcy could catch her on a good day.

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Evelyn Lewis was having a good Saturday, according to the nurse who escorted Darcy into the common room at the end of the long hallway. Darcy hadn’t seen her Gram for almost six months, and she could see the decline in the woman as she creeped closer to eighty-years-old.

“Hey, Gram,” Darcy said, walking up to the armchair the older woman was seated in.

“Darcy! Your Dad didn’t tell me you were coming!”

Darcy smiled and leaned down to give her grandmother a hug. It was the first hug she’d had since those she’d freely given to Bucky. She needed to talk to him, but she had no idea where to even start. He probably thought she hated him, and despite knowing she was being unfair, she _was_ a little upset at him for letting her go so easily. He hadn’t even tried to explain; he’d just accepted that she was no longer in his life.

Shaking her head to clear those stupid thoughts, she sat down next to Evelyn Lewis and made as much small talk as she was able. They talked about the weather and the new nurse who was an absolute bitch, apparently. Gram asked about Darcy’s parents. When Darcy told her that Dad was out of town with Diane, Gram misunderstood and assumed Diane was Darcy’s mother. It was something she did often. She would get Diane and Darcy’s mom mixed up in her mind. A good day didn’t mean she was all there. She also thought Darcy was still in school at Culver. Darcy just smiled and told her school was great.

During a lull in conversation, Darcy said, “Gram, what did Pop do before he started doing electrical work?”

“Oh, he’d just roll over in his grave if I told you, sweetie,” Gram said.

“Did he work for the C.I.A.?”

Gram was silent for a moment as she looked out the window. “When we were married he was traveling a lot for them. He was all over the place and most of the time he wasn’t allowed to tell me. I always teased him that he saw the world without me.”

“When did he retire?”

“Oh, honey, he never retired,” she said, shaking her head. “He slowed down when your dad was born. I wanted him to quit, but he loved that work. I loved it when I was younger, and I’d just met him. He was like James Bond. You know James Bond?”

Darcy smiled. “Yeah, Gram. I know James Bond. How often did he go on missions after you had Dad?”

“Sometimes once or twice a year.” Her eyes went wide. “Darcy, you can’t tell your Dad. We always told him Ted was going on business trips.”

“I guess they _were_ business trips,” Darcy said. “Technically.”

“He slowed down after you were born. You were the most beautiful little baby. He loved you so much, sweetie. So much.”

Darcy blinked away the wetness gathering in her eyes. “I know he loved me. You said he slowed down.”

“He went away maybe once every two or three years then. I was so mad at them for not letting him just live his life, and I was so mad at him for not saying no. I don’t understand why he couldn’t just say no.”

“Did he die on a mission, Gram? Is that what happened in Phoenix?”

The older woman shifted in her chair and dropped her gaze to the floor. After a long, silent moment, she leaned forward toward Darcy. In a low voice she said, “He wasn’t supposed to tell me, but before he left he said he was picking up documentation from an old contact of his. Something about an organization called Hydro or Hydra, maybe Hydran. It was financial records of people who had laundered money for them. Honestly, I think Ted thought he was in danger. He wouldn’t have told me otherwise.”

“He _was_ in danger,” Darcy confirmed.

“They killed him.”

Darcy nodded. “They did. And the C.I.A. covered it up with the help of the Phoenix police department.”

“Honey, that’s just how those things go.”

She sighed. Gram was right. That was just how those things went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As Chris Evans says, "I don't wike it." But I do promise to make it all better in short order in the next chapter (9), which will involve the resolution of all that UST as well. And the bonus chapter (10) will just be gratuitous smut in which Bucky runs his dirty mouth during some phone sex.
> 
> If you'd like a list of all the songs I listened to when writing this piece (which are also the songs quoted at the beginning of each chapter), then you can find them on this little graphic I made [RIGHT OVER HERE](http://i.imgur.com/UaXlvDT.jpg).


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE NOTE THAT I POSTED CHAPTER 8 A FEW HOURS AGO (EARLIER TODAY). IF YOU HAVE NOT READ IT, I HIGHLY SUGGEST YOU GO BACK AND DO SO OR YOU'LL BE A BIT LOST.

> _”I know I’ve done wrong and I paid for it. It’s your time to talk, and I’m listening.” - Jacob Banks (Unknown)_

It was almost midnight, and Jane had printouts laid all over the floor by the doorway. Darcy might have been annoyed at how trapped she was in the name of science, but it wasn't like she had anywhere to be. If she went home, she would just lie in bed and think about Bucky and how good he'd felt that night they'd shared her bed. That would inevitably lead to her thinking about how he'd killed her grandfather and how the government had gone in behind him and covered it up so there wasn't a news story about a terrorist organization killing a C.I.A. agent in a Phoenix motel.

Jane crawled over the floor and made a notation on one of the sheets. She came up on her knees and flipped her hair back out of her face. “Darcy, why don’t you go talk to him?”

“Talk to who?” Darcy asked, kicking her feet up on the desk and leaning back in the chair.

“James Barnes. Who else?”

“Jane, he killed my grandfather. What the hell do I say to that? Am I even allowed to date someone who killed one of my family members?”

“You're allowed to date whoever you want. Besides, I thought you said he didn't kill those people. Remember when I expressed concern for your safety? _You_ told me I was being judgemental.”

Darcy frowned and lifted a lock of hair up in front of her nose so she could stare at all the split ends. She needed a trim. “He's not dangerous.”

“If you're holding him responsible for your grandfather's death, then you have to hold him responsible for all the others.”

“They brainwashed and tortured him. He didn't have choice; it wasn't really him,” Darcy snapped, sitting upright in the desk chair.

Jane nodded. “Okay. So, why are you avoiding him about your grandfather if it wasn't really him?”

Darcy gave a heavy sigh. “I don't know. If he'd just call then I'd forgive him.”

Jane raised her brows. “I've never seen you so irrational before. He probably feels this is his fault, and he doesn't have any right to impose himself on you. If you want to get–and I quote–laid big time, then you'll have to suck it up and call him.”

“It's not about that. I miss him,” Darcy admitted. Not that she didn't want to get him naked, but it was definitely more than a roll in the hay for her. Jane was right. HYDRA killed her grandfather, not Bucky. They’d just used him as their weapon. Blame the shooter, not the gun. He'd been their gun for decades. She’d known he wasn’t to blame for Pop’s death from the beginning, even when Bucky had walked out of her apartment that night. She'd known it before she'd requested the information on her grandfather, before she'd gone to see her Gram a couple days ago. But knowing and feeling were two different things, and she just didn't have any idea how to bridge the gulf between her and Bucky now.

Darcy watched Jane lean over her research across the floor. “Don't mess up my stuff when you leave,” Jane told her. “Go around there and step on those two sheets.”

She rolled her eyes at Jane before grabbing her bag and following instructions. Bucky was just a few floors above her. She didn't know what apartment, but he was on the sixth floor, assuming he hadn't left the building entirely. No better time than the present to swallow whatever excuses she’d been inventing and just go talk to him.

She took the elevator up to his floor and stood in front of it while she sent him a text.

**Darcy: Can we talk?**

Part of her was sure he wouldn't respond or, if he did, it wouldn't be until the next morning. She almost jumped out of her skin when her phone beeped.

**Bucky: Yes**

**Darcy: Open the door**

She looked down the long hallway and waited, straining to hear the sound of a door opening around the corner where she couldn't see. Instead, the door at the very end of the hallway opened to reveal a shirtless Bucky in just a pair of sweatpants. He ran a hand through his hair and pulled in a deep breath when he saw her standing a few yards away. He looked like hell, like he hadn’t slept for a week and wasn’t eating right.

She adjusted her bag on her shoulder and made her way down the hall. He watched her with dark eyes. Darcy frowned at him once she was standing toe-to-toe and could see exactly how tired he looked. “You haven’t been sleeping,” she said.

Bucky shook his head once. “No, I haven’t.” He braced his hand on the doorframe and continued with, “Darcy, I’m so sorry. I wish I could take so many things back. I wish I had died when I fell off that train.”

Her heart hurt for him. When he was in front of her like this, it was hard to think of him as a killer, especially the one who had done her grandfather in. “Don’t talk like that,” she said softly. She felt guilty over making him feel that way during the weeks that she couldn’t find the courage to come see him. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah, of course.” He moved back to let her enter the apartment. It was dark and silent. All she could hear was the cool air coming out of the vent above their heads.

“Is Steve home?” she asked, stepping off the tiled foyer and onto the plush beige carpet of the living room. She sat her bag down on the floor by an armchair.

Bucky shut the door behind her. “No, he’s at Sharon’s. If you don’t want to be alone with me, then I can call him and…”

“Bucky,” she said, interrupting him, “I’m not afraid of you.” When she turned around, he was leaning back against the door and looked like all the life had just drained out of him. “You don’t look good.”

“I’m not good,” he agreed. “I killed your grandfather, doll. How could I be good?”

“You killed dozens of people while you were held by HYDRA. None of them were your fault.”

He furrowed his brows. “How can you say that? I did it.”

Darcy gave a weary sigh. “Bucky, we’ve been through this before. It’s not your fault. I never thought my grandfather was your fault.”

“I thought you hated me,” he whispered.

She wanted to go hug him, but she didn’t think either of them were ready for that right now. “I don’t hate you. I missed you.”

Bucky gave a humorless, harsh laugh. “Why would you miss me?”

This time it was Darcy’s turn to furrow her brows. “Because I enjoyed spending time with you. After… Well, after you saw the picture and we realized that my grandfather was your two thousand four assassination, I needed some time. I mean, I thought he was a retired electrician who slipped in the tub while he was showering and died. I lived with that lie for half my life. The truth is an adjustment, even if he’s been dead for thirteen years.”

“I wish I could take it all back, doll. I’d do anything. I never wanted to be someone who would hurt you, of all people.”

“Me, of all people?”

“The way you’ve treated me… With the exception of Steve, no one treats me like that.”

She stepped closer to him. “Like what?”

“Like you care about me. Like you’re not afraid of me.”

Darcy tilted her head to the side, her heart beating just a little harder for him. “I’m not afraid of you, and I _do_ care about you.”

He closed his eyes and tilted his head back to rest the crown of it on the door. “Fuck, doll, I wish I could make it all better for you. I feel like such a piece of shit for hurting you.”

Anything she’d clung to as a way of shifting some of the blame for Pop’s death in Bucky’s direction just fell away in that moment. He sounded so painfully sincere and so devastated. Darcy took two more steps to bring her in front of him so she could slip her arms around his waist.

His body tensed at her touch, and he looked down at her. She couldn’t see his face because hers was pressed against his bare chest. They’d never been skin-to-skin like this. He was warm, and his skin was smooth over all the muscle beneath. Bucky’s exhale against her hair was uneven and shuddering, almost like a sob.

“Darcy,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and pulling her tighter to him. She took a half step closer to bring their bodies together.

“Why didn’t you call me?” she asked, her lips brushing against his skin.

“I wanted to; I tried. I just… I thought you’d want me to leave you alone.”

“I wanted you to call,” she admitted.

“You stopped coming to the gym. I assumed you were done with me.”

Darcy kissed the spot on his chest right over where his heart was beating so fast she could feel it. She regretted not coming to see him earlier. It had been stupid of her to expect him to do all the work. “I’m definitely not done with you.”

Bucky exhaled sharply and said, “Thank god.”

“You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

She closed her eyes when he ran his fingertips through his hair. “Haven’t slept like I did when we were together,” he murmured.

“Were we together?”

“Felt that way to me.”

She smiled and moved her lips to where his chest met the metal shoulder, kissing the scar tissue there and then the cooler metal. “Yeah,” she agreed. “I felt that way, too.”

He released her from the hug and placed his hands on either side of her face, tilting it up so she was looking at him. “Am I outta line if I ask you to stay with me tonight?”

“Need me to do my hair trick so you can fall asleep?”

“I just want you here,” he replied.

The bald honesty of the statement contracted her heart and made her eyes well up with tears. “If Steve finds out, then you’ll never hear the end of it.”

“I don’t care, doll. I don’t want you separate anymore, not if you’re willing to be here.”

She turned her face to the side so she could kiss his right palm as it slid off her cheek. “Of course I’ll stay.”

“Just… I’m not expecting anything from you. I just want you to lie down with me,” he told her.

“I gotcha,” Darcy told him. “We can snuggle.”

They made their way to his bedroom. There was a small bedside lamp on that cast a soft glow over the head of the bed and the pillows. The room seemed sparse with just the bed, chest of drawers, and small writing desk by the door to the en suite bathroom. His bed was messy; the duvet and sheets were kicked down to the foot of it, and the fitted sheet over the mattress looked like it had endured a very restless man.

Darcy squinted when she saw a box of candy on the nightstand. “Bucky, why do you have Hot Tamales by your bed?”

He looked over at them, eyes wide like he’d been caught in the act. “Ahh, fuck. I… I got them for you. Don’t… It’s stupid. Let me get rid of them.”

“No, it’s okay,” she said, holding out her hand to stop him. “You got them for me?”

“To apologize. You said your grandfather took you to movies and shared a box of Hot Tamales with you. I… I got them a couple weeks ago when I decided to call you and see if we could go see a movie and maybe start over.”

“Why didn’t you?”

He shook his head. “Didn’t think you wanted to see me. Thought you’d laugh in my face and tell me I was crazy.”

She felt her heart melt at the gesture he’d been too afraid to make. “That’s sweet, Bucky. Does the offer still stand?”

“Of course, doll. Anytime.”

She looked around the room. “I came from the lab; we were working late. I didn’t bring anything to sleep in. Can I borrow a shirt?”

Bucky pulled open a drawer and held out a white T-shirt that could have fit two of her inside of it. “Is this okay?” he asked. “Let me see if I can find pants.”

“This is okay,” she told him, taking the shirt. “I don’t need pants. It’s in the middle of the summer, and you’re like a heater.” Darcy unbuttoned her jeans and shimmed them down over her hips.

When she looked up, he was turning his back to her. “I’ll just… uh, give you some privacy so you can…”

Darcy laughed softly and stepped out of her jeans and flip flops. “You were talking a big game a few weeks ago before we got interrupted.”

“Don’t want to assume you’re still interested like that.”

“Wouldn’t be changing into your T-shirt so we can cuddle in your bed if I wasn’t still interested like that,” she told him. Darcy pulled off her T-shirt and quickly removed her bra. She had his soft, cotton shirt pulled over her head while he was still hesitating to turn around. Darcy stepped up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, letting her hands slide over his abdomen where she could feel the definition of his muscles.

Bucky’s inhale was sharp, and he reached up to place his hands on top of hers. “This feels like a dream. Maybe I passed out and this isn’t really happening.”

Darcy pressed a kiss to his back, right between his shoulder blades. “You think I’m a dream?”

“Oh, doll, I’ve been dreaming about you since before you started talking to me. You’ve always been a dream.”

She moved to stand in front of him. “Is that why Steve asked me to help you?”

“I told you I was sweet on you,” he said. “Steve always caught me watchin’ you.”

Darcy raised her brows. “You watched me?”

“You didn’t think you were the only one who was lookin’, did you?” For the first time since she’d come through the door, he had a grin on his face.

“I had no idea. Why didn’t you ever talk to me? Say good morning? Something?”

“Didn’t think it’d go anywhere. Figured you’d get scared if I started paying attention to you like that.”

Darcy smiled up at him and then crawled onto his bed. She knew she was probably flashing her boring, blue panties, but she didn’t care. “Guess you were wrong,” she said, settling into the middle of his king size bed. It felt massive and luxurious compared to her tiny one.

He watched her reach down to separate the sheet from the duvet and pull it up to cover herself. “Guess I was,” he agreed, slipping into bed next to her and under the same sheet. He kept his hands to himself and laid down on his back, giving her space.

“Come here,” she demanded, tugging at his arm. He lifted up and moved closer. Darcy rolled onto her side and molded herself against his body, resting her head in the crook where his right shoulder met his chest. She bent the knee of her top leg and slipped it over his thigh. Slowly, she trailed the tip of her index finger down the center of his chest.

Bucky sighed and pulled her closer with the arm he’d wrapped around her. “I’m sorry, Darcy.”

“Stop apologizing; you’re forgiven.” She dragged her finger in a circle around one of his nipples. “My dad doesn’t know.”

“Know what?”

“That Pop was in the C.I.A. Pop and Gram kept it from everyone else in the family.”

“How did you find out?” Bucky asked.

“I sent a request to the C.I.A., and they confirmed it by letter. I went to see my Gram a couple days ago. She’s in Rochester in a nursing home. Most days she’s pretty out-of-it with dementia, but she was good when I went to see her.”

“What did she say?”

Darcy traced the seam where his prosthetic started. The skin there was ridged with scar tissue. “She told me he never talked about his missions, but before he left for Phoenix he said he was picking up records of HYDRA’s money laundering with names. In hindsight, it probably would have exposed Pierce, since he was running the show on this side of the world. Explains why they would have sent you. Pop retired in the early seventies, but they called him back for missions every so often. Guess he was good.”

“He was,” Bucky said.

Darcy wanted to ask about the assassination, but she didn’t know if she could handle the answer. “I think you were both caught up in something bigger than yourselves. I know you wouldn’t have killed him if you’d been you.”

“I want to do right by him,” Bucky said. “I want to make you happy. It sounds like what he would have wanted.”

Darcy moved her hand up into his hair pushing it away from his forehead. “You do make me happy,” she whispered, kissing his jaw.

Bucky let his fingers slip beneath the hem of the shirt she was wearing to trail up her spine. Darcy shivered and pushed her body further into his.

“There you go, doing that thing,” she said.

Bucky chuckled. “I like what it does to you.”

“What? That it makes me want to climb on top of you? Or that it makes me want to melt into a puddle of goo?”

His laugh was breathy. “Both.” He ran his fingers down her spine until he hit the waist of her panties. “I missed you.”

“You missed sleep,” she corrected.

“No, I missed you. Sleep is just a bonus.”

She dragged her nails down the side of his head to the base of his neck, and he was the one shivering this time. “There isn’t anything to forgive, but if you want forgiveness, then you’ve got it.”

“Thank you, doll.”

She gently sorted through the tangles in his hair until he yawned. Smiling, Darcy said, “Go to sleep, so I can too.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he murmured. He was out like a light in less than two minutes.

It took her less than five to join him.

///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\///\\\\\

Darcy woke to the sound of the front door shutting. The apartment was silent, but daylight was coming in through the window across from the bed. They’d left the bedroom door open last night, and she’d bet money Steve had just returned from Sharon’s. Darcy debated whether she should get up and close the door to preserve Bucky’s privacy or if she’d just get caught by Steve as she crept around in her panties and Bucky’s shirt. Knowing her luck, probably the latter.

Bucky was dead to the world. His breathing was deep and steady, but his arm was holding her against him just like it had when they’d fallen asleep. Darcy shifted and pushed herself up on an elbow just as Steve appeared in the doorway.

“Darcy?” he whispered. “I thought you… I thought you and Bucky…”

She smiled at him. “We’re stupid, but we’re good now.”

‘Uh, yeah. I see.”

“This is not what it looks like, Cap. Touch therapy, right? He hasn’t been sleeping so I'm here to help,” she said, keeping her voice low so she wouldn’t wake him.

“Touch therapy was hugs. You’re in bed with him,” Steve replied, “and you’re wearing his shirt.”

“I didn’t bring my pajamas. Stop judging.”

Steve smiled back. “I’m not judging. I’m glad you’re here with him.”

Bucky stirred and rolled over so his back was to Steve and his face was buried her in chest. She gasped when his strong arms slipped around her and pulled her tight against him. She looked over Bucky’s head at Steve. “You’re going to wake him up,” she told the other man.

“Are you two official?” Steve asked.

“Official what?” she replied stroking Bucky’s hair. His breath was hot against her breasts.

“Are you his girl?”

Bucky shifted again, rolling her onto her back and settling between her legs. She could feel the insistent press of his erection right against her sex. He was too heavy to move. “What does it look like?” she asked Steve.

“Looks like I better leave you two alone,” he answered, shutting the bedroom door with a click, but not before he flashed her a wide smile.

Darcy shifted her hips and felt Bucky's erection rub against her slit through his sweats and her thin panties. “Oh, wow,” she mumbled. “Bucky, you gotta wake up, or I’m gonna have to figure out how to get these pants off you while you’re on top of me.”

He laughed softly and lifted his weight off her a little when he pulled his face from between her boobs. His eyes were playful, and there wasn’t a hint of sleep in them.

“Were you faking?” she asked, eyes narrowed.

“I didn’t want to deal with Steve. I heard him come in a couple minutes ago.”

“You rolled on top of me to make him uncomfortable so he’d leave us alone.”

“Mmm, maybe.” He dipped his head down to place an opened mouth kiss on her neck. Darcy shivered. “You mind me doing this?” he murmured to the spot behind her ear.

“Uh, no. Proceed, Sarge.”

“Wanted to do this that morning I woke up in your bed.” He sucked her earlobe into his mouth and traced the edge of it with his tongue.

There must have been a direct line from her ear to her pussy because she couldn't seem to stop the shameless way she lifted her hips up to rub against him. “Fuck, you're supposed to be out of practice.”

He chuckled deep in his throat and threaded the fingers of his right hand through her hair, tilting her head back. His lips cut across her neck, all warm breath and wet tongue and gentle suction. Not enough to leave a purple hickey for everyone to see, but enough to make her wish she could wiggle her nose and magic away their clothes.

“I have good retention,” he told her as he moved that devilish right hand down beneath the sheet to slip up inside the shirt she'd borrowed from him. He skimmed over her hip and stomach before cupping her left breast, his thumb and forefinger rolling her nipple until she couldn't stop the shuddering breath from escaping her mouth.

“I think you're overestimating how much foreplay I need,” Darcy told him, reaching down to hook her fingers in the waistband of his sweats. The way he was wedged between her thighs, she couldn't really get too far with removing them.

Bucky laughed out loud this time. “Patience. I'm trying to enjoy the moment. I have a beautiful and witty woman underneath me, and I think she wants me. Don't get this every Tuesday morning.”

“You’re _gonna_ get this every Tuesday morning. In fact,” she said, changing tactics and slipping her hand down the front of his pants, “you can get this every night of the week. If you want it, that is.”

His breath hitched when she wrapped her hand around his cock. “Oh, doll, I've _dreamed_ about it. Every night and twice on Sundays. How about that?”

“What if I want it twice on Thursdays, too?”

Bucky lifted himself up to his knees, and she immediately missed the weight of his body on her and his cock in her hand. “Anything for you. I'm all yours,” he told her.

Darcy lifted her arms up so he could pull the shirt over her head. He didn't stop to really look until he'd pulled her panties off as well. She shifted on the bed as he knelt between her spread knees and raked his gaze over her naked body. His pupils were blown, and he'd already licked his lips twice.

“You look like I do when I see cheesecake,” she teased, bouncing her knee off the outside of his thigh.

“Makes sense,” he said, leaning over her to kiss her stomach.

She laughed nervously at feeling so exposed. “Makes sense, how?”

He lifted his gaze to look up her body before dipping back down and tentatively running his tongue between her pussy lips.

“Ohhh,” she moaned in realization. He had plans to eat her just like dessert. She tried to make a crack about there not being any whipped cream, but he’d opened his mouth wide and was alternating between fucking her with his tongue and nudging her clit.

Darcy couldn’t keep herself still, writhing and clutching at the sheets as he worked her over. Eventually, Bucky growled deep in his throat and grabbed her legs, hooking them over his shoulders before he went back in with his talented mouth. She didn’t remember when she wrapped her fingers up in his hair, but she had, and he seemed to love it. He had two fingers of his right hand pushed up inside her as deep as he could go while he flicked her clit back and forth with the tip of his tongue.

Roughly, he pulled his fingers out and shoved them back in. The friction and his tongue lapping up her juices as he assaulted her clit just sent her careening over the edge of that orgasm she’d spent the last few minutes approaching. The stubble on his beard rubbing against the sensitive skin of her inner thighs and pussy was just this side of painful, but that only made everything more intense.

When she came back to reality, she realized her thighs were clamped tight around him while her hands were pushing his head insistently into her groin. She let up, embarrassed at how much she’d lost control. “Yikes, sorry,” she said on a breathy exhale.

Bucky kissed her mound and lifted himself up on his knees again. “Sorry for what? Coming on my face? Ain’t nothing to apologize for, doll. Trust me. That's what I intended.” She almost came again when he licked her wetness off his lips.

“For crushing your head with my thighs,” she replied, throwing a forearm across her eyes. She couldn’t stop the grin from growing on her face, though.

He leaned over her, supporting his weight on his elbows, while he scattered kisses down her neck and across her chest. “Mmmm, I’d be insulted if you didn’t. Means I’m doing something right when you do,” he whispered before taking a nipple between his lips. He shifted his lower body to shimmy out of his pants, but she couldn't see if he was wearing underwear or not. From the feel of him, she was betting not.

Darcy could feel his erection against her leg, and it was getting her hot just thinking about how it would feel inside her. His mouth exploring her neck, shoulders, and chest weren’t helping matters. “Stop teasing me,” she groaned, and then she remembered Steve and his super hearing. “Oh god,” she whispered, pushing Bucky off her. He let her wiggle out from underneath him and rolled onto his back when Darcy sat up.

“What?” he asked, looking nervous and guilty, like he’d gotten his hand caught in the cookie jar.

“Steve. What if he heard me? How embarrassing…”

Bucky laughed so hard he rolled onto his side and clutched at his stomach.

“It’s not funny, Bucky.”

“Oh, it _is_ , doll.” He rolled over onto his back again. “Steve ain’t here. He left right after he closed the bedroom door.”

“How do you know?”

“Super soldier hearing.”

Darcy’s hand shot out to hit him in the arm. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“My mouth was busy,” he replied.

She looked down his body and saw his impossibly perfect cock lying against his stomach, still very ready for her. Before he could take control again, she moved to her knees and tried to push her self-conscious thoughts aside. His eyes were definitely on her, but his gaze was heated and appreciative. She flipped her hair back over her shoulders and straddled one of his legs.

“Darcy,” he said. When she looked up at his face, his gaze locked with hers.

“What?” she asked.

For a moment he didn’t offer an answer. Finally, he said, “I don’t deserve you,” on an exhale.

“Sure you do,” she replied, gripping the base of his cock in her fist.

His head tilted back. “No, no, I don’t,” he whispered right before she leaned over to swirl her tongue over the head of his cock. When she took him in her mouth, she felt his chest arch up as his shoulders and head pressed deep into the mattress.

She guided him into her mouth as far as she could take him, until he was hitting the back of her throat and triggering her gag reflex. She tried to suppress it each time she bobbed up and down on him. Her fist followed her mouth up, squeezing him tight and using her saliva as lubrication. He lasted for just a few seconds–no more than a minute–before he was using a hand in her hair to pull her off him.

“Darcy, stop.”

“Why?” she asked, her lips still on his tip.

“I’m close.”

“Good,” she replied, guiding him back into her mouth and sucking so hard her cheeks hollowed out.

“Fuck, doll,” he grunted. She felt his fingers in her hair tighten, but he didn’t hurt her. “Your mouth feels so good on me.” Seconds later he was making a choking sound as he tried to clamp his mouth closed on the sounds of his orgasm. She felt him spill onto her tongue, hot and salty, and while she’d never found blowjobs to be something she craved or avoided, she really loved the way he’d come undone by just her hand and mouth.

Before she could do anything beyond lick her lips clean, he was on her, rolling Darcy onto her back.

“You.” His voice was more of a growl. Bucky wedged his hips between her thighs, spreading her wide.

“Me?” she asked.

“You are going to kill me,” he replied before leaning over her body, pressing his weight into her and taking her mouth with his. It was a deep kiss, filthy and desperate with his hot, wet tongue mimicking all those things he’d done to her pussy just minutes before.

“Death by sex?” she asked, when they both pulled back for a breath.

“No better way to go,” he replied. “Give me a minute, and I’m going to make you pay for that.”

“Mmm, I wondered about the refractory period,” she told him. “Jane agreed with me that all that super soldier juice probably shortened it.”

He raised a brow at her. “Were you talking to Jane about sleeping with me?”

“Maybe. It was all hypothetical. Although, I did tell her I was going to get laid big time on our date night that got ruined.”

“Laid big time?”

“What?” Darcy said. “Why does everyone ask me what that means? It means I’m going to have really awesome sex, maybe multiple times.”

“Ahh,” he chuckled. “Got it. So, you were going to seduce me that night?”

“Or let you seduce me. I mean, look at you. How could I say no to all this?” Darcy ran her hands over his shoulders and down his arms.

“I'm all yours, doll,” he told her before kissing her. This time it was softer and searching. She sighed when he pulled back to suck in a breath.

“Why me?” she asked, looking up into his eyes.

“You've been on my mind for months. Can't get you outta it, and it only got worse when I could touch you and talk to you.” He gave her another kiss, sweet and gentle until he caught her lower lip between his teeth and gave it a little nip. It didn't hurt, but it was enough to make her gasp. He took advantage by deepening the kiss.

She felt the head of his cock slip between the lips of her sex. He’d moved a hand down to position himself and was trying to find just the right angle. She helped him by lifting up slightly. Bucky gasped when the first couple inches slid inside her.

“Stop teasing. Give it to me,” she said through clenched teeth. His upper teeth pressed into his lower lip, and his eyes closed as he pushed further into her. Darcy’s breath caught in her throat as he stretched her until she was on the verge of pain. Once he was seated fully inside her, he paused and opened his eyes.

“Never felt anything this good,” he admitted. His eyes were all hazy and his lips were parted.

Darcy lifted a leg and rubbed her thigh against the outside of his. “Move,” she told him.

He did what she asked and pulled out before pushing back in. He went so slowly she thought she could feel every ridge and vein in his cock. She wondered if her eyes might just roll back into her head at how amazing he felt.

“Oh my god, Bucky. Keep moving.” Darcy pressed the heel of her right foot into his ass. “You feel so fucking good.”

“It’s you,” he whispered, dropping his body down until they were chest to chest. “You're the one making this so good. You're so tight and wet and perfect.” He was practically babbling, his mouth covering her ear.

His left hand–the metal one–gripped onto her waist, his thumb close to her belly button, as he went a little harder and snapped his hips into hers. Darcy dragged the nails of one hand down his back while the other hand grabbed at his hair. It seemed to just encourage him and go faster and thrust into her with a little more force.

“Fuck, doll. You gotta tell me if I'm bein’ too rough with ya,” he said in a breathless voice.

“You're not. You're gonna make me come,” she replied. It was the truth; she could feel how tight the coil was down deep in her body, right there in her lower abdomen. It felt like he wound it up just a little more each time he thrust up into her body.

“Yeah?” he asked, locking gazes with her. “You gonna come for me? You gonna let me feel you?”

“Fuck, I knew you'd be so good at talking dirty. We need to do some phone sex.”

“Rather do it like this, doll. I can tell you how tight your pussy feels so much better when I've got you wrapped around my cock.”

Darcy thought she might come from just listening to the stream of filthy words coming out of his mouth. “Bucky,” she begged.

“You wanna come for me? Get me all wet? Better hurry, doll, because you've got me so fucking close.” He kissed her hard, sweeping his tongue into her mouth like he was claiming it as his territory.

“Oh god, please. I'm almost there.”

“Come for me.” It almost sounded like a plea. “So close, doll. I'm gonna fill you up so much. You want that? You want me to come inside you? Let me feel you. Come for me, please.”

Darcy felt like an overpowering wave had just picked her up and she was riding the crest of it, unable to control anything, including the way her body arched into his or the keening sounds falling from her lips.

She vaguely heard him growl and slam his hips into her one final time, holding himself so still, his body taut.

“Holy shit,” Darcy said as she exhaled. His face was buried in the crook of her neck, and she was absently stroking his hair.

“Does that count as getting laid big time?” he mumbled after he caught his breath.

“That's a fucking understatement,” Darcy told him.

Bucky’s body shook with nearly silent laughter. “You and that mouth,” he said.

“Uh, you and your mouth, Barnes. Next time you're out of town on a mission we’re going to have the filthiest phone sex there ever was.”

“Deal,” he said, “but only if you're gonna be my girl. You didn't really answer Steve when he asked.”

“Of course I'm your girl. We've been dating for weeks now.”

He pulled out of her and rolled them both until she was lying halfway on top of him. His hands were tracing patterns all over her body from her thighs to the top of her head. After several minutes of making her shiver in pleasure under his touch, he said, “I’m so glad for that insomnia.”

“Bucky, that’s terrible,” she said, resting her chin on his chest.

“Got me you.”

“Actually, I think Steve did that.”

Bucky groaned. “Ah, fuck. You’re probably right.”

“We could get him a thank you card,” she said, trying to keep a straight face.

“No way. He’s already smug enough.”

Darcy giggled and pressed her face into Bucky’s chest before looking back up at him. “How about a bouquet of flowers with balloons that say, “Thanks for helping us get laid” and have it delivered during a briefing?”

He laughed at that idea. “Actually, that might work,” he said. “You think they make balloons that say that?”

“You can get anything on the internet,” she replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll post the final chapter (which takes place about eight months in the future) tomorrow. It is nothing but smutty smut-smut. Thank you to everyone who has commented or messaged me. You make me want to continue writing in this lovely fandom. Also, I want to give a big, fat, extra special thank you to [ChocolateGate (cocosmama)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cocosmama/pseuds/ChocolateGate) and [Bulmaveg_Otaku](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Bulmaveg_Otaku) for being wonderful people and wonderful betas.


	10. Chapter 10

> _“I'm feeling your body all around, but the truth of it all is more profound. And I will make you fall in love. Know I think about it all the time, yeah.” - DVSN (With Me)_

Darcy let herself relax into the mattress and pulled the neckline of the shirt up over her nose. She inhaled deeply until her lungs were full. The worn cotton fabric still smelled like him, and that was why she was wearing it to bed tonight.

His bedroom was dark, and the apartment he shared with Steve was silent. She didn't often spend the night when Bucky was away, but he'd been gone for over a week and she craved his presence. After wrapping up a late night with Jane, she'd gone upstairs and let herself into their apartment.

Her phone was lying on the pillow next to her, but it was silent. He'd texted her two days ago, and she hadn't heard from him since. He normally sent her at least a couple messages a day while he was out on missions. She tried not to worry, but her brain wouldn't shut down.

So, here she was in her panties and his dirty shirt, curled up in the middle of his bed, trying her best not to think of never seeing him again.

The soft ding that indicated a text made her open her eyes and grab for her phone.

**Bucky: You up?**

She almost wept with relief. They'd been dating for nearly eight months and she still wasn't used to him risking his life, even if he was damn near invincible.

**Darcy: Yes. You okay?**

**Bucky: Sorry doll. Our position was leaked and we had to move fast and cut off communication**

**Darcy: As long as you're okay**

**Bucky: I'm okay. Might be home by the end of the week. I miss you bad**

**Darcy: How bad?**

She chewed on her lower lip as she thought of him coming home and finding her in his bed. That had happened once before, and he'd kept her up all night. Steve had left the apartment and crashed on the couch in the lounge down the hall just so he could get some sleep.

Her phone dinged, pulling her out of the memories of the way he'd taken her back then. Instead of a text, she found a picture. It was a close-up of his crotch. Through his white boxer briefs, he was loosely gripping his hard cock in his left hand. The metal fingers made for a nice contrast over the soft cotton. She could see the open V of his black tactical pants framing the white underwear. Darcy licked her lips.

**Darcy: How'd you get so worked up around a bunch of dudes on the elite ops team?**

**Bucky: Been looking at those pics you sent me a couple days ago**

She turned her head and pressed her face into the pillow. He'd gotten a great deal of practice with sexting during the missions he'd been on since they started dating. She'd sent him several compromising pictures of herself, some of which were downright filthy. A couple days ago she'd sent him two that would have been more at home on a porn site than Instagram.

**Darcy: For your eyes only. You lose that phone and someone finds my pics then I will end you**

**Bucky: Doll I ain't letting nobody see em. You're mine.**

**Darcy: Good. I miss you too. I'm in your bed and wearing your shirt**

**Bucky: Fuck doll. I can't wait to be home. Lemme see you**

She rolled over and stretched her arm out until she could touch the switch on the bedside lamp. It cast a soft, yellowish glow over her. Darcy kicked off the duvet and angled the camera down her body. She captured a dark picture of curves and shadows. His white T-shirt popped out and you could see that it was hiked up to reveal her panties. The top of the picture showed her chin, but the rest of her face was cut off in favor of showing him her body.

She texted it to him and waited as it traveled thousands of miles to arrive on his phone. Instead of the muted ding of a text message response, her phone buzzed to indicate a phone call. It was Bucky, and Darcy answered with a smile, saying, “Hey, Sarge, did you see something you like?”

His voice was deep when he said, “You know I did. You trying to kill me with these pictures, doll?”

“Maybe I was trying to get a phone call outta you. Looks like I win.”

“I’m on watch outside while everyone sleeps. Pretty uneventful right now, and I can’t think of a better way to pass the time than with you.”

She chuckled, trying to play it off, but when he said things like that she wanted to melt. “You sweet talker, you.” He said things like that a lot. She wasn’t used to a boyfriend who was so vocal about how much he adored her. Her reservations about how he’d kept her a bit of a secret when they’d first started talking had disappeared quickly when they’d made it official with their first real date. Bucky was happy to tell whoever asked that Darcy Lewis was his girl.

“So, you wearin’ my shirt, doll?”

Darcy traced the hem of it where it cut across her abdomen with the index finger of her free hand. Instead of pulling it back down to cover her like a nightshirt, she slipped her hand down between her legs to cup her mound. “Yep. I was missing your smell so I thought I’d crash in your bed and sleep in your shirt.”

“You know how bad I wish I was there?” he asked softly. She could hear how close his mouth was to his phone. She could just imagine his lips brushing against the mic.

“Real bad,” she replied, running her middle finger up her slit over the cotton of her panties.

“Wish I could touch you. It’s been too long.”

Darcy gave him a breathy laugh. “It’s been just over a week.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Too long. My hand don’t feel nearly as good as you.”

“You been cheating on me with your right hand?”

He chuckled, and she could hear him shift, the sound of his clothing rustling, and then she heard the click of what she could only assume was a weapon. “Ain’t cheating if I’m looking at your pretty little pussy while I’m doing it.”

Darcy swallowed. Yep, he still had the pictures. It wasn’t that she regretted sending them, but she was a little embarrassed over him studying them. She’d found that sweet and shy Bucky could be quite the dirty horndog in the sack. It was a very pleasant surprise, especially when she realized that no man had ever made her feel as desired and beautiful as he did. “Don’t you start something with me; you’re on watch,” she said, trying to resist slipping her hand inside her panties.

“Ain’t nothing going on here,” he murmured. “You touchin’ yourself, doll? You wishin’ it was me?”

Darcy did slide her right hand into her panties then. Her left was pressing the phone hard against her ear.

Before she was unable to string together words to respond to him, he continued with, “I wish it was me, sweetheart. You know how much I love to taste you, right?”

She slipped her middle finger inside herself and then added her index finger. “Bucky,” she gasped.

“Fuck, doll. I wish I was there between your legs right now so I could eat you until you scream for me. I fucking love when you can’t hold back, when I can make you come so loud Steve has to leave the apartment.”

“You’re so bad,” she whispered. Her fingers were soaked. There was just something about his voice that made her hot.

“You want me to do that thing with my fingers while I suck on your clit? That always makes you scream for me.”

“Makes me pull your hair, too,” she replied, gasping for breath.

“I get so hard when you push my face into your pussy like that. Like you’re in charge and I’m just there to make you come all over my mouth.”

“Fuck, Bucky,” she grunted, sliding her fingers up to spread the wetness all over her clit.

“Am I getting you hot, sweetheart?” His voice was almost a growl. “You touching yourself for me right now?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“Take your panties off, doll.”

She didn’t even question him. Pressing the phone against her ear with her shoulder, Darcy lifted her hips up and roughly pulled her panties down her legs. They ended up kicked underneath the sheets as Darcy settled back into the bed.

“You just in my shirt now?” he asked.

“Yeah. Want me to take it off?” She’d do anything he said when he got like this.

“Nah, leave it on. If I can’t be on you, then that’ll do. It still smell like me?”

“Uh huh,” she said, bending her knees and spreading her legs.

“Spread those legs for me, let me see you.”

Darcy chuckled as she adjusted the phone against her ear with her shoulder and cupped her breasts in her hands. Her nipples were sensitive, even through the fabric of his shirt. “You can’t see me, though.”

“Let’s just pretend I’m there. I want to be so bad. You know I’m gonna fuck you for hours when I get back, right? You’re driving me crazy, so I’m gonna drive you crazier. I’m gonna make you come so many times you’ll be beggin’ me to stop.” His voice was rough, and Darcy knew him well enough to know that he had his hand around his cock by now. He got that rugged, clipped tone to his voice when he was touching himself. It always felt so naughty to be doing this while he was on a mission.

“Are you touching yourself?” she asked him, grinning.

“We ain’t talking about me, doll. We’re talking about whether you want me to finger fuck you with my right or left hand when I get back.”

She let one of her hands move down to spread the lips of her pussy. “I love when you talk dirty to me,” she whispered.

“You didn’t answer me. That because you want my left hand? You want me to make you come around all that metal? You know I can still feel that tight little pussy when I get you off, right? I can still feel how wet I make you with the left.”

“Jesus, Buck,” she muttered, moving her other hand down between her legs. She spread her lips with one and circled her clit with the middle finger of her other.

“Yeah, you want me to fuck you with my left hand,” he confirmed.

“Yeah,” Darcy agreed, feeling like she was on fire. She arched her back off the bed and pressed her head deep into the pillow. The phone was uncomfortable against her ear, but she was too focused on his voice to care.

“Tell me, doll. Say it.”

“I… I want you to fuck me with your left hand.” She sounded out-of-breath.

Bucky grunted and said, “I will, doll. Soon. I’ll suck on that hard little clit while I finger fuck you until you come.” He paused, his breathing heavy. “And then you know what I’ll do?”

“What?” she asked immediately.

“I’ll lick up that sweetness from your pussy until you’re all clean.”

“Bucky,” she pressed two fingers inside her and was only a little surprised at how dripping wet he could get her in the space of a few minutes with his voice alone.

“You need to give me a pair of your panties to take with me next time. I wanna put ‘em on my face while I jerk off to you so all I can smell is you.”

“Ugh, you make me so fucking crazy,” she muttered, rubbing her clit while she pumped two fingers in and out.

“Doll, you don’t even fuckin’ know. I’m rock hard for you right now.”

“Tell me, Buck.”

“Only if you let me hear you, sweetheart. Let me hear you make those little sounds for me while you fuck yourself and pretend its my cock.”

This time she didn’t swallow the moan that spilled out of her mouth.

“Yes, Darcy,” he said. “Let me hear you.” She heard him shift again, and then he continued with, “I’m sitting on the roof of our safehouse with my rifle, and I’ve got my dick out in my right hand. I'm fucking my hand and wishing it was you, doll.”

“You wearing those pants that make your ass look like I want to sink my teeth into it?” she asked.

He chuckled under his breath. “Yeah, doll. The black tactical ones with the pockets and straps. Dreamin’ of you being here so I could make you straddle my lap and sink down on my cock. My hand don’t feel nothin’ close to how good your tight little pussy feels around me.”

“Mmm, I want that so bad. I wanna feel you.” Suddenly her fingers weren’t nearly enough. She wanted to feel that stretch of his cock as he pushed into her.

He was so in tune with her that he knew exactly what she was thinking. “Yeah? You want me to fill you up, doll? You wanna take my cock real good? You always do when you spread those sexy legs for me and let me slide up inside your pussy. Ain’t nothin’ feels better than that.”

She could hear that fast and rhythmic slap of his hand moving up and down his cock. It pushed her a little closer to her orgasm. “I wanna come around your cock,” she admitted. “I wanna feel you come inside me.”

“Fuck, doll,” he grunted. “Yeah, I wanna… fuck you so good until you clench that perfect pussy around me and make me shoot off while I’m deep in you. You wanna feel me come inside you?”

She was working herself faster, pumping her fingers into her pussy while she rubbed circles around her clit. “Fuck, yes. Yes, Buck. Please, please…”

“You gonna come for me, sweetheart? Those aren’t your fingers inside you, that’s my hard cock. I want you to come around me, and then I’m gonna fill you up. Can you do that for me?”

“Uh huh,” she said on a sharp exhalation. “I’m gonna… come for you.”

“Do it, doll. I need to hear you.”

She felt that tightness in her abdomen, that stretch of a rubber band as it was pulled and pulled until it broke. Darcy cried out his name as she came, her walls clenching around her two fingers that were pressed inside her as far as she could get them. They weren't anything compared to taking him, but they were better than nothing.

“Fuck, baby,” he grunted. She could hear him through the blood pounding in her head. “I’m gonna come for you.”

“Do it, Bucky. Come for me,” she whispered.

He choked back a wordless cry as he came. As she caught her breath and settled down from her high, Darcy relaxed into the mattress with shaky limbs. She could hear his labored breathing begin to even out. It took her back to moments they’d had in this very bed–feeling his body pressing hers into the mattress and that pleasant ache between her legs as he regulated his breathing after making them both come. She longed for that feeling when he was away on a mission.

“I can't wait until you're home,” she said softly.

“Me, too, doll. Me too,” he replied in between deep breaths. “I wanna put my hands all over you.”

“You just want me to play with your hair,” she teased.

Bucky chuckled. “Mmm, guilty. I do want that.”

“How have you been sleeping?”

“Okay. It's always better with you, though. Something about you bein’ right there in bed with me makes it easier.”

They didn't spend many nights apart when he was in town. Their nights were usually split between his place and hers. Darcy wondered if Steve was getting tired of sharing his apartment with them. He spent a good amount of time with Sharon, but she still felt like she was invading his space.

“I get better sleep with you around, too,” she admitted.

He pulled in a deep breath and exhaled before clearing his throat. “I've been thinking about that,” he said.

“About what? My sleep?”

“About us and how we spend most nights together.”

“Am I getting on Steve's nerves?”

“Nah, doll. But I was thinking if you were willing… I mean, I know you said you like your independence and that's why you have your own place outside the building. And if you want to stay there, then I ain't got a problem with it as long as I can keep the key you gave me.”

Darcy smiled. He was nervous, and she always found that to be endearing. Big, bad assassin and he got all shifty when he wanted to ask her a question sometimes. “After that time you woke me up at four in the morning with some of the best sex I've ever had, you can keep the key to my apartment forever.”

“Doll, that was months ago.” She could hear him smiling.

“I have fond memories, okay? It was really good sex.” He'd pulled her out of sleep by roughly pulling off her panties and burying his face between her legs until she came so hard she had almost blacked out. After that, he'd flipped her onto her stomach, pulled her up on her knees, and thrust into her from behind. He'd used his hand to get her off twice more before he came himself. She loved when he was sweet and attentive, but there was just something about him when he got aggressive that made her sloppy wet and ready for him.

“You want me to bend you over and fuck you from behind?” he asked. “Because that's what you're getting when I'm back from this mission.”

“I'm ready,” she said a bit to eagerly.

“But it'd be a lot easier if I could do that in our own place.”

Darcy knew it was coming, but when it actually came out of his mouth, her heart still pumped a little harder in her chest. She'd never lived with a boyfriend before. Things had never really gotten that serious with any of them, and she liked having her own space. Despite that, it was so easy for her to say, “Where are we gonna live?”

“I gotta stay in the Avengers building. Look, I know you don't want to live there, but I…”

“Yes. Of course I'll live here with you,” she said, cutting him off.

“You will?”

“Uh, fuck yes. I won't have my shit spread all over Brooklyn, half of it here and half at my place.” She paused. “Wait, is Steve gonna murder you for inviting me to live in his place?”

“There's an empty place on the fifth floor. Ain't as nice as Steve's, but…”

She interrupted him again by saying, “Sold. When do we move in?”

Bucky laughed softly. “You eager, doll?”

“You know it. I'm ready to have all my stuff and you in the same place.”

“Thought I was gonna have to fight you on this one,” he admitted.

“Nope. I want to be where you are.” Darcy took a deep breath and added, “So, uh, moving in together is a big step.”

“Yep.”

“You wanna take another big step?”

“For you, sure,” he said.

“Diane, my dad's girlfriend, is throwing him a surprise birthday party next month. How do you feel about meeting my dad?”

Bucky was silent for a long moment before he said, “You want me to meet him?”

“Only if you want to.”

“Does he know…”

“Know what? That you're banging his daughter?”

“Doll,” he said through a breathy laugh, “not that.”

“That you can make me come just by talking dirty to me?”

“Fuck, Darcy. I hope he never knows that.” He sighed and said, “Does he know about my past?”

Sometimes Darcy forgot about how dark his past was and all the things he'd been forced to do. Maybe it was a forgetfulness her subconscious encouraged so she didn't have to connect him with her grandfather’s death. She didn't blame him for it, but acknowledging he did it just made her sad for Bucky and her grandfather.

“No,” she said, “he doesn't know, and I don't think he needs to. You're just my hot boyfriend who happens to be one of the Avengers and makes me indescribably happy.”

Bucky laughed under his breath. “Then, yeah, I'd love to meet your dad.”

“I do have a warning,” she said.

“What's that, doll?”

“Well, he's probably gonna insist we stay at his place in the extra bedroom. So, it's gonna be an intense weekend filled with my family.”

“Hmm, so you're gonna have to be really quiet, then.”

Darcy furrowed her brows. “Why quiet?”

“I ain't havin’ your dad hear us have sex, doll.”

She laughed and rolled over in his bed. “I'll be really quiet. Promise.”

“Will you stay on the phone with me until you fall asleep?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said.

“I should be home in a few days, but I miss you and I want to hear you breathing.”

Sometimes he said things like that, and her heart melted into a gooey mess. “Weirdo,” she said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky replied. “I love you, too, doll.”

She froze with her face against his pillow. He'd never told her that before. Hell, she'd never told him either, despite dating him for months. Darcy smiled, pressed the phone harder against her ear, and said, “I love you more.”

 

**THE END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to earn that dirty talk tag somehow, right?
> 
> Thank you to everyone who read and commented to let me know you're enjoying the fic. Your support and happy notes to me make me excited to write more in this fandom. I hope you enjoyed this story, and if you haven't checked out my others, then I hope you will do so.
> 
> I do have another project I'm going to start work on. It will be Wintershock and will likely be a bit longer than this fic, though I won't know for sure until I get into writing it. As always, nothing gets posted until I'm finished with the first draft, so don't expect anything right away. Perhaps in four to six weeks I'll have something for you to read. Hopefully you all don't mind sticking around until then.
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr (anogete) where I will sometimes post updates on my current projects, including snippets/excerpts from works in progress before they are completed/posted.If you have con-crit on my writing or just want to drop me a line, you can e-mail me at anogete527@yahoo.com.
> 
> If you're bored, aren't picky about the fandom, and looking for more of my stuff to read, then I have several E-rated NHL/hockey fics [over on Mibba](http://www.mibba.com/Member/197616/Stories/). I'm a broken record, so they are all romance with smut. That's just how I roll. 
> 
> You all are the best! See you soon!


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